Power Rangers Elemental Drive
by IlluminatiKOTE
Summary: After an epic battle with Blackborg in Power Rangers Omega, the six teens have been transported to a far off place where their destiny is unknown. Will the new creatures in the sky defeat this new team? Find out here in this new story and if you have not read Power Rangers Omega, you should read it first.
1. Transformation Part I: Lost

**Chapter One: Transformation Part I: Lost**

The sun is high in the sky as the dry, hot winds of desert reshaped the scorched landscape. It is the middle of the day and the desert heat peaked. The only thing that could be seen for miles is a lone figure, dressed in red, walking. This person seemed to be of a medium complexion and stood at about 5'10". He had a look of exhaustion painted on his face and he seemed to be drenched in sweat as he wandered through the desert. Upon closer inspection, this person is the person known as James.

'This heat is unbearable and I do not know how long I can last out here.' James thought as he stopped and panted. 'How did I get here? What happened?'

James' mind begins to traverse through his short term memory to try to figure out how he actually got into this situation. He begins to have flashes of a battle and destruction. He sees five flashes of light and remembers fire.

'I wasn't here.' James thought. 'I was somewhere else. Somewhere that is different than this. I remember that there were more people and we were doing something very important. Dammit why can't I remember anything more than that?'

As he tries to remember more, the scorching heat plus walking most of the early morning exhausts him. Thinking has become too much of a task as well as standing. James collapses onto the hot sand and begins to feel the effects of heat stroke.

'I cannot believe that this is the end for me. I want to stay longer and try to figure this out but I am tired, hungry and thirsty. I can't have only been sent here to just die; I have to have some other purpose. ' James said as he started to close his eyes. 'I only wish I knew what I was doing here. I only wish that I knew my true purpose for being here.'

Before he passed out, he felt a familiar feeling over take him. He started feel his body begin to change. He felt his body begin to transform from a physical state to that of energy. He felt the hot sands beneath him disappear as his body disappeared. He knew he was being teleported before he passed out.

"James…" A male voice said. "James… are you okay?"

James began to groan as his mental facilities began to start anew. He slowly opened his eyes as a blurry figure stood before him. He blinked furiously as he regained consciousness and awareness. Soon the blurry figure came into clear view and he discovered that Justin was standing there.

"James, are you okay?" Justin reiterated.

"Justin!" James exclaimed groggily.

"Yes, it is me." Justin said giving James an odd look.

"Where am I?" James asked.

"You are at the Base of Operations in which the metamorphosis from Homo Sapiens to Superhuman energized beings of enforced authority occurs."

"What?" James asked.

"Was I unclear in my previous statement?" Justin asked with a frown.

"Never mind, what is going on here?" James asked.

"Well, we lost track of you when you were fighting Inferno." Justin began.

"What, who is Inferno?" James said confused.

"That was the newest threat which threatened the city of Manhattan." Justin replied. "It was lucky that we were able to acquire your approximate geographical location or else your biological osmotic functions would've been disrupted due to the lack of Dihydrogen Oxide atoms present in your body."

"Justin, what are you talking about?" James asked with confusion still apparent.

"What Justin is saying is that you would've died of dehydration if we had not found you." Keri said as she appeared from another part of the building.

"Keri!" James said. "What is going on here?"

"I do not understand why James keeps on asking that." Justin said. "I thought I just explicated the circumstances which have led him to arriving at this juncture."

"Keri, why is Justin talking like that and again what is going on here?" James asked.

"Well, Justin has always talked like that and you were transported by a monster named by Inferno to a desert." Keri said.

"I don't remember any of that." James said. "I remember a battle and us winning and needing something."

"In your narrative, you mentioned the plural. Whom were you indicating with such avowal?" Justin asked.

"What?" James asked.

"When you said 'us', who were you talking about?" Keri asked.

"Oh, you, me, Justin, Phil, Mike, and Wendy." James listed. "Why?"

"Who are Wendy and Phil?" Justin asked.

"What do you mean who are Wendy and Phil?" James said incredulously. "They are our friends."

"We don't know a Wendy or a Phil." Keri said.

"Well, we are all Rangers together." James said.

"That is impossible." Justin said.

"Why?" James asked.

"…because, you're the only one that is a Power Ranger." Keri said. "There is only one Power Ranger and that is you."

"What?" James exclaimed.

"Yes, you are the only individual imbibed with the power to transform into a Power Ranger." Keri replied.

'What the hell is going on here?' James thought.

Meanwhile…

The room is dark and devoid of most light sources. The only source of illumination in this room appears to be was an electronic clock. This clock sits on a small dresser next to a small lamp. The clock reads, '7:00 a.m.' on its face. There is a bed adjacent to this small dresser and it has a lump in the middle of it. The bed is dressed in inky black blankets and sheets. The lump appeared to be a person sleeping soundly through the morning. The room all around appeared to have an odd amount of black assortments and decorations adorned. Suddenly, there is a noise which echoes throughout the dark room.

"Michael, it's time to get up!" A female voice yelled. "You've got to go to school this morning!"

"No mom it's summer; remember?" Mike replied groggily. "We're finished with school for this year."

"No it's not and I swear to god if this is another joke…." His mother said from the doorway.

"No it's not." Mike said. "We already went through finals week and everything. I am just waiting for my grades and have time to chill."

"Michael!" His mother yelled. "I know you have school today because it is only March, so get up now and get ready. I am not telling you again!"

"Alright... alright, I am up." Mike said.

His mother moved from the doorway when she saw Mike rise to an upright position. She proceeded to go down the hall and wake up his brother.

"I could swear that it is the middle of June." Michael said. "We already had finals and are done with school for the semester.

Mike got up from his bed and looked at his clock. He moved over to the other side of the room and looked at his wall calendar. He saw that the date is March 27th 2009. He kept looking at the calendar to make sure that is correct.

"Well I guess my mother is right." Mike said to himself. "I still could swear that it's already summer.

Michael appears to be deep in thought as he begins his morning ritual. He gets his clothes out of his closet and lays them out on the bed. He goes to the bathroom, takes a shower and brushes his teeth. He comes back to his room and begins to get changed. He looks around at his room until he sees something on his other dresser. He sees his cell phone colored black. He suddenly has flashes of battles and of the Power Rangers. He remembers before his mother woke him up dreaming of being apart of the Power Rangers and saving the Earth. He wants to shrug it off but the images are so clear and vivid that it weighs down on his mind.

'Was that all just a dream? Did I just imagine everything that I saw?' Mike thought as he finished his morning rituals. 'Could if even be possible for me and my friends to really be Power Rangers? Did we fight against Blackborg and defeat him? This all seems too farfetched to be true, but the images are just so vivid and detailed. Can dreams be so clear? Could this all be possible?"

Mike continued to question this vivid dream as he finished getting ready. Once he was done, his brother appeared at his door.

"Are you ready to go Bro?" James asked as he stood in Mike's doorway. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing" Mike said as he grabbed his backpack. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" James said as he frowned at his brother.

"Yea, let's go." Mike said as he smiled at his brother and headed out. 'There is no way that we could've been Power Rangers; it's impossible. It had to have been a dream."

Mike and his Brother waited outside until Justin arrived in his Jeep. In the car already were Wendy and Phil. Mike opened the door and got in along with James.

"What's up guys?" Mike asked.

"Nothing much" Phil said.

"Same here can't believe we gotta go to school." Justin said.

"I thought you loved school brainiac." Mike chuckled.

"No, what are you talking about." Justin asked as they started driving.

"Yea, Justin's not a genius." Wendy said. "He is barely pulling C's here."

"You know, it's not nice to talk about someone who is sitting right here." Justin said. "And who is also your main ride to school."

"Well it's true." Wendy said.

"In any case, what happened to Keri?" Mike asked.

"Who?" Phil asked.

"Keri" Mike said.

"Oh, I think he is talking about that loser that sits by herself during lunch." Wendy said.

"Oh that girl…" Phil said. "Hahaha, she actually thought she had a chance when she asked me out last week."  
>"Hahaha" The group laughed.<br>"Wait, I thought that we're friends." Mike asked.

The group laughed again.

"Listen to Mike, always the jokester." Phil said.

"Yea, man you crack us up." James said.

"We're here guys." Justin said snickering.

'What is going on here?' Mike thought.

Elsewhere…

The sky was dark with deep gray colored clouds. Flashes of light blinked every so as crimson red lightning struck the deformed landscape. The air was thick with the smog of destruction which weighed heavily on the lungs of those that breathed it in. The area looked in shambles as if this place has only ever known is violence and destruction. A person was lying in the midst of this horror. This person appeared to be female and was dressed in a golden uniform which shimmered in the flashes of crimson lightning. The golden armor this person wore bore a striking resemblance to the gold Omega Ranger costume. Suddenly this figure began to move. Her movements were slow and looked as though she were regaining conscious. She began to groan as her eyes flickered opened. Beyond the helmet, one could identify this person as Keri

"Ugh… What happened? What is going on? I feel like I have been hit by an 18 wheeler that decided to pull in reverse and run me over again." Keri said as she woke up. "What is this? How did I get my powers back? That's impossible. I thought I lost these powers when the animal spirits were captured."

Keri looked down, stunned at the sight of her uniform and the power that she had return to her. She managed to rip her eyes away from her uniform and gasped in shock as she looked at the site before her. She saw the devastation of the ravaged planet around her and could not believe this to be real. It looked like Armageddon had taken place on the planet and she was the only things that appeared untouched by destruction.

"Hmm, if I have my powers I wonder if I still have my telepathic abilities." Keri asked to herself.

Keri closed her eyes and brought her gloved fingers to the temples of her helmet. She starts to concentrate as she tried to release her mind into the mindscape. After several minutes of intense concentration, she gave up. She soon started to contemplate the situation that she seemed to be in.

"How could this have happened? Before I blacked out, the world was alright; everything was normal." Keri asked as she started to walk around. "I thought that the defeat of Blackborg would've set things back to normal and would prevent the end of the world. Those figures in sky, they must've been responsible for this widespread destruction. But I thought those glowing orbs were going to help us defeat that new power. What happened?"

Then, as if to answer her question, a newspaper tumbled along in the breeze and hit Keri in the back of her leg. Keri picked up the newspaper and smoothed it out.

"Well that is pretty random..." Keri said. "…a newspaper just tumbling around here in the midst of this chaos."

She began to read the newsprint and her eyes widened.

"No" Keri said softly as tears rolled down her eyes. "This can't be true… it just can't be…"

Keri threw the paper to the ground and backed away slowly. The paper flattened on the ground and the headline of the newspaper read: "Earth Conquered While Power Rangers Die in Wake of Evil Rangers." At the bottom of the page, was a picture of six Power Rangers. They each appeared to be wearing a darker, more distorted form of the Omega uniforms. At the forefront of these rangers is the Gold Ranger; Keri.

"Yes it is true Keri." A voice said.

"What?" Keri said as she looked up. "Oh no"

The five distorted rangers were standing in front of her. They walked slowly towards her while talking. Keri was shaking as she was paralyzed in place.

"This is who you are Keri." The Red Ranger said.

"No, I am nothing like what this is." Keri said. "I just… can't be."

"You are Keri." The Blue Ranger said. "Your nature has been and will always be that of evil."

"No!" Keri yelled. "You don't even know me!"

"But we do, in fact you showed us the way." The Pink Ranger said.

"What are you talking about?" Keri asked. "Who are you?"

"Don't you remember us… me?" The Green Ranger asked stepping forward.

"What… no" Keri said softly.

"Let's show her guys." The Crimson said.

"Power Down" The Rangers yelled.

Keri's eyes widened with shock as the glow of energy scattered from the rangers. Standing before Keri were James, Mike, Wendy, Justin, and Phil. They looked dramatically different than they used to. The colors they are wearing are a darker hue than they normally are. Their eyes appear to have lost the distinguishing characteristics that made each ranger unique; James' courage, Wendy's compassion, Mike's lightheartedness, Justin's curiosity and Phil's selflessness. They seemed to be shells of the people they once were. The only thing Keri could see now from them all is coldness, indifference, cruelty, arrogance and pride.

"No, you guys… this can't be." Keri said sadly.

"Yes, you showed us the way." Phil said as he pulled her into his arms. "Now it is time to embrace your destiny."

Meanwhile…

The bright morning sun peaked through the open shades of a window of a laboratory. The walls of the lab were painted in a bright blue which filtered the incoming light to a degree. The lab floor and tables were a mess with gadgets and gizmos splayed everywhere. There were chalkboards and whiteboards all over filled with equations and formulas of advanced mathematics and physics. Amidst this mess was a person in a deep blue lab coat. He was dark skinned, clearly of African descent. He appeared to be resting comfortably on a desk which was covered with papers and forms. The person shifted a bit as the morning sun touched his face.

"Justin! Justin! Come quick!" A woman said loudly.

"Huh? Oh Wendy, where am I?" Justin asked confused.

"Ah, you fell asleep in the lab again didn't you?" Wendy said as she moved some papers.

"Again?" Justin asked. "Weren't we just…"

"Just what?" Wendy asked.

"I could've sworn that we were just wrapping up the battle of our lives." Justin replied.

"You must've been dreaming." Wendy said.

"But, it felt so real." Justin said. "We were all Power Rangers, fighting against Blackborg and then something happened."

"Are you okay Justin?" Wendy asked. "You seem flushed and you have been working long hours."  
>"I feel fine, but I can't seem to remember what is going on." Justin said. "All I keep thinking of is this dream of Power Rangers and…"<p>

"Oh that reminds me, your most recent project is completed." Wendy said. "We finished our final test this morning and they are fully operational."

"What is fully operational?" Justin asked.

"What do you mean…" Wendy looked for a moment then smiled. "Oh you're such a kidder, now come on let's go."

Wendy grabbed Justin's sleeve and dragged him out of the lab.

"Wendy, I still do not understand the meaning of this." Justin said stopping her. "What is all of this?"

"Phil, Keri and Mike have finally finished applying the programs to your schematics…" Wendy began.

"Wait, slow down…" Justin said cutting Wendy off. "Phil, Keri, and Mike are here. Hold on, you have been working on programs and schematics of my design? Not to sound arrogant or egotistical, but how did you understand them? You guys could barely make heads or tails my lab notes when we took science classes together."

"Are you kidding?" Wendy laughed. "Everybody understands them."

"How?" Justin asked.

"Well you started the formulas with simple algorithms which gave us the foundation…" Wendy began.

"Wait, how do you know all of these things?" Justin asked.  
>"Justin you are just too funny today." Wendy said laughing. "Now come on."<p>

"Oh my goodness!" Justin exclaimed.

Wendy opened the double doors which led to another bigger lab and before him stood six robotic Omega Rangers. They portrayed the every last detail of the Omega Rangers down to their Omega Weapons.

"That's us!" Justin exclaimed.

"No, these are the robot rangers that you developed." Phil said giving Wendy a strange look.

"I can't believe this…" Justin said to himself in amazement.

Justin moved around the Robot Rangers investigating every aspect of them. Mike, Wendy, Keri, and Phil looked at with confusion. They looked back each other wondering what is going on.

"Justin, are you feeling alright?" Keri said as she placed a hand on his shoulder.

"…Oh yea, sorry I just can't believe they are done." Justin said snapping back to reality.

"Yea, we've all been working so hard on this for so long." Mike said.

'I have no idea what is going on here, but I am going to figure it out.' Justin thought.

"Yea, I can't wait until we can give them a test run." Phil said.

"Well it looks like we might get our chance." Keri said. "There is a monster attacking downtown."

"Alright activating Omega protocol" Wendy said. "Justin imput command"

"What?" Justin asked.

"Imput verbal command component into the system to activate the robot rangers" Wendy said.  
>"Oh right, umm Red Cheetah, Blue Hawk, Crimson Wolf, Gold Sphinx, Green Bear, and Pink Deer, Omega, Delta, Chimera." Justin said.<p>

"Voice confirmed: Dr. Justin Allen. Imput Command: Confirmed." The computer stated. "Activate Omega Ranger software 2.0."

Suddenly, the lifeless ranger uniforms began to move and gears began to whir to life. Each helmet illuminated to life with each representative color.

"Ranger Red, downloading danger parameters" The robotic Red Ranger said. "Danger confirmed; Rangers teleporting to lower Manhattan."

Upon its words, the Rangers were engulfed in light that was familiar to only one person there. Justin looked at them in astonishment.

Elsewhere…

The class was sitting through another boring lecture from the English teacher. She was talking about conjugation and verb components. If one were to look at the class they would see some students staring off into space, others texting on their cell phones to other people, and then there the few who could resist the warm embrace of slumber. One such person was a dark haired, Hispanic girl. This girl was dressed in a pink top, tight jeans, and pink sneakers. She was lightly snoring as the teacher attempted to teach the children. The girl began to stir until,

"Wendy!" The teacher yelled. "Am I disturbing you?"

"Huh, what?" Wendy said as she bolted upright.

"What indeed. Were you awake at any point during this lesson?" The teacher asked.

"Where am I?" Wendy asked.

"That is not cute, not stop fooling around and pay attention." The teacher scolded. "Now, when constructing a sentence…"

'What the heck is going on here?' Wendy thought.

Wendy looked around the room and saw a very familiar classroom. It all looks like the English classroom that her and other rangers had together.

'This isn't right, summer just began.' Wendy thought. 'Maybe one of the guys has a clue.'

Suddenly, the bell rang indicating the end of class. The teacher dismissed her students as they all got up and filed out of the room. Wendy got and grabbed her backpack. She looked around at the students to try and find her friends. She thought that they must've left and proceeded to look for her friends at their lockers. She went to all of them and they were not there. She tried to think of where they could be and the only other place which they could be and rushed to the lunchroom. When she got there, she could not believe what she saw. She looked over the room and in the midst of the nerd table was a boy wearing mostly blue and she knew to be Justin. Over a bit more were a couple of boys in mostly red and crimson sitting at the jock table which whom she knew to be James and Mike. Over a bit more was a boy dressed in all green sitting at what appeared to be a Hip-Hop table whom she knew was Phil. Over further was a girl wearing mostly dark gold and black and appeared to be sitting with the "emo" kids and she knew this person to be Keri. The nerd table being the closest, Wendy went over there to talk to Justin.

"Hey Justin, Why are you sitting with the others?" Wendy asked.

"Excuse me, but who are you?" Justin asked.

"Justin, it's me Wendy." Wendy replied. "Remember"

"Oh you're that girl in my History class and English I think." Justin said as he thought for a moment. "What do you want?"

"I wanted to know why you aren't sitting with the others." Wendy asked.

"What others?" Justin asked impatiently.

"The others: Mike, Phil, James, Keri, you know." Wendy said returning the impatient tone.

"Why would I ever sit with the two Neanderthal jock brothers, the hip-hop wannabe and the dark and gloomy one?" Justin asked. "I am more intelligent than all of those people combined and I get enough mental stimulation here. So if that is all you want, then you may go."

"Fine" Wendy said angrily as she moved over the jock table.

Wendy angrily walked away from the nerd table and strode over to the jock table. She saw the group of guys laughing loudly about some sports story or something. Wendy walked over to Mike and James.

"Hey guys." Wendy said brightly.

"Hello beautiful." Mike said.

"Hey" James said.

"So what's up with Justin and the other guys?" Wendy asked.

"Why should we care about some nerd?" Mike asked.

"And what others are you talking about?" James asked.

"Not you guys too." Wendy said.

"What are you talking about girl?" Mike asked. "Sit down with us and chill out."

"No, I think that I am going to head out, I'm not feeling too well." Wendy said as she started to walk.

"You need someone to go with you gorgeous?" Mike asked.

"No thank you." Wendy said as she walked away.

"I don't know what you see in her bro, she ain't even all that fine anyway." James said as Wendy walked away.

Wendy walked quickly as tears flushed her eyes. She ran out of the cafeteria and kept running until she got to the girls bathroom. She started to cry.

"Wendy, are you alright?" A girl asked.

"Judy, everything is all wrong!" Wendy exclaimed.

"What do you mean? What happened?" Judy asked.

"They all acted like they didn't even know me and James…" Wendy began.

"Whoa wait a minute, who doesn't you and what did James do now?" Judy said.

"Justin treated me like I was a nobody; Mike and James acted like I was nothing. I was too upset to even find out what Phil and Keri thought of me." Wendy sobbed.

"Well of course they did, you don't hang out with any of them." Judy said.

"What do you mean, we're all best friends." Wendy said.

"No you guys aren't, they are all into their own thing." Judy said. "You guys have never been friends."

"What?" Wendy said.

"Yea, they're all into their own thing and you're into yours." Judy said as she hugged her cousin.

'It can't be true… it just can't be.' Wendy thought.

Elsewhere…

"And that is what we now need to do in order to defeat Blackborg." Justin said. "Phil… Phil are you okay?"

"Huh, what?" Phil said snapping back to reality.

"Justin was just going over a new strategy to defeat Blackborg." James said.

"Whoa! When did the Power Chamber get fixed?" Phil asked in shock.

"It's always been this way." Mike said.

"Are you okay honey?" Keri asked.

"I think so, didn't the Power Chamber get destroyed." Phil asked.

"No, it's been damaged here and there, but it hasn't been destroyed." Wendy said.  
>"I thought it was destroyed the day we defeated Blackborg." Phil said confused.<p>

"We haven't defeated Blackborg yet." Keri said. "He's still attacking us."

"General Andromeda and General Vargas are attacking upper Manhattan." The computer said.

"Alright guys, its morphing time!" James said as the Rangers dialed 258 in their morphers.

The rangers teleported to upper Manhattan. General Vargas and Andromeda were terrorizing citizens along with around 10 Blackhearts. The rangers arrived quickly on the scene.

"Okay, Phil you can take care of Andromeda and Vargas, the rest of us will take care of the Blackhearts." James said. "Got it?"

"Got it" The Rangers said.

"What?" Phil yelled.

"Better get in there." Justin said as Andromeda and Vargas ran at him.

Phil ducked down to avoid Vargas' sword and managed to sweep kick him. However, he screamed in pain as whip slashed him across his back. He tried to recover but Vargas kicked him in the side. Andromeda transformed her whip into a sword as both her and Vargas brought their swords down. Phil managed to block both attacks with his Omega Staff.

"Wow this is retro." Phil said as he held off the attack. "Guys a little…"

He looked over he saw the blackhearts were down and the other Rangers were gone. In that split second of him looking, both Vargas and Andromeda power kicked in the chest. Phil went flying back into a building. Both Vargas and Andromeda charged up their swords and unleashed their attacks. Both attacks hit Phil dead center in his chest and instantly demorphed.

"Goodbye ranger." Vargas said.

"Some friends you've got." Andromeda said. "At least you won't have to protect them anymore.

Phil tried to get up but soon the world went dark.

Back on Earth…

"Zordon, I am concerned about the Rangers." Alpha 9 said as he handled more advanced circuitry.

"I am not." Zordon said.

"What?" Alpha 9 exclaimed.

"I am not, because they will come back with the power to defeat this new evil." Zordon said. "If I am correct, they are being tested by powers so ancient and primal; they were here at the very creation of this universe."

"What if they fail?" Alpha 9 asked.

"These teenagers were chosen by the animal spirits for their individual personalities and all of their capabilities. They will triumph." Zordon said. "Now we must keep working quickly, for we must be ready for their return and to protect this planet from its newest threat."

In Space, still with Earth orbit…

"Why haven't we attacked that pitiful mudball?" A voice said.

"Patience, we have just been released by that Red Ranger." Another voice said. "Our powers are not at their best."  
>"But the Rangers are no longer on Earth; there is nothing left to protect it." A feminine voice said.<p>

"Are you mad?" The second voice said. "There are still other Rangers active on the morphing grid; we would be pummeled by them if we went on the offensive now. Besides, we still have the animal spirits. With them not on earth, the ecology will start to deteriorate slowly but surely as we sap their strength."

"Well then I guess we just sit back and wait." The first voice said.


	2. Transformation Part II: Empowered

**Chapter Two: Transformation Part II: Empowered**

"So, I am the only one that's a Power Ranger." James says trying to understand the situation.

"I think you need to be examined for any cranial injuries." Justin says.

"Why?" James says.

"You are acting in a highly abnormal manner which is similar to that of amnesia." Justin says. "This can be associated with injuries sustained to the hippocampus."

"I can't wrap my mind around this lingo that you use." James says.

Justin is about to say something until an alarm goes off.

"What's going on?" James asks.

"Computer, threat assessment" Justin says as he walks over to a console.

"The monster known as Inferno has returned." The computer says. "Threat is considered high based on the earlier defeat the Red Ranger succumbed to."

"Alright, that means we are out in the field today." Justin says looking at James. "Well…"

"Well what?" James asks.

"You're going to need to morph." Keri says bringing out equipment.

"Oh yea." James says as his animorpher is brought to him. "It's morphin' time."

James once again transforms into Red Omega Ranger. The trio teleports downtown to where the fire is engulfing everything. Buildings and cars are ablaze along with immense heat being felt by all. People are running and screaming while fire trucks and hydrants are spread thin. The three arrive on the scene and see what is happening.

"Alright Red Ranger, you need to find and stop Inferno." Justin says.

"No, I've got to help these people." James says as he rushes away.  
>"Red Ranger, I want to help these people as well but more are going to get hurt if you do not stop Inferno." Justin says over a communicator.<p>

"I can do both." James says as he super-speeds a family out of a burning building.

James continues to save people and families from buildings and cars. However the screams and cries for help persist. James changes his tactic and focuses on a being that is humanoid in shape but entirely engulfed in fire. James runs at him and kicks him in the chest at super-speed. However, he flies right through the being and lands foot first in the passenger side of a car. James shakes it off as Keri runs over.

"James… James… you're going to ne—" Keri says as James shoves her out of the way of a fire ball.

"Keri this is far too dangerous for you." James says.

"But James you need what I—" Keri begins.

"Keri, you are not a Power Ranger; I need to try and beat this guy to save everyone." James says as he runs toward Inferno.

Inferno launches another stream of fire at another building. A bunch of teenagers scream as rubble landed in front of them. James runs over and hears familiar voices as he gets over there.

"Guys, calm down." Phil says. "Everything is going to be all right."

"Phil is right guys; we're going to get you out of there." Wendy says.

"Phil, Wendy!" James yells as he gets over there.

Phil and Wendy look up after they start to move the rubble.

"What are you doing over here Red Ranger?" Wendy says.  
>"Yea, you need to go take care of that fire guy over there." Phil says.<p>

"But you guys need help." James says.  
>"Don't worry, we can handle this." Wendy says.<p>

"It's more important that you take care of everyone." Phil says as his eyes quickly flash with fire. "You don't have to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. You have a team for a reason. Everyone knows the danger and still go out there with you. Do not continue to carry the weight of the past. Pave your future with your team."

"What?" James says with surprise.

"I said, get out there and kick some ass." Phil says. "We'll take care of this."

"Red Ranger!" Keri and Justin says as they run over.

"Yes" James said.

"You're going to need our help." Keri says.

"This is a solidification device." Justin says handing the device to James. "You will need to implant this into the monster and it will give him a non-ephemeral form."

"Excellent; thanks guys." James says.

"You're welcome." Keri says.

James runs at the beast and clutches the device firmly. He runs through Inferno and deposits the device within him. As he goes through, the Omega armor burned away leaving James in his civilian clothes. His animorpher begins to glow red like molten lava and assumes a liquid shape. It floats out of his hands and levitates above him. Soon it starts to form into a rectangular shape. The outside looks like an I-pod which has flames running from the bottom to the top. It gently floats down to James who grasps the new Morpher. Once in his hand, as if by instinct, he knows what to do.

"Elemental Power Energize!" James yells.

Suddenly James is engulfed in flames and red energy surrounds him. A small flame is the emblem that appears behind James. As the flames slowly recede, a brilliant red uniform is revealed. The transformation is complete with James in the Red Ranger uniform that is predominately red with a white trim along the arms and legs that connect to an emblem in the center which has the small flame along with five other symbols.

"Red Fire Ranger!" James yells as Inferno explodes.

The flames engulf the scene like fire burns away paper. James looks around and all he sees now is a void. A red being suddenly appears before him.

"James, you have passed the test that I have set out for you." The being says.

"Where am I? Who are you? Where are my friends?" James asks quickly.

"You are in the nexus of the elemental plane." The red being explains. "I am the avatar of fire, you have passed the test I set out for you to determine if you are the one to control the power of fire and you succeeded."

"How?" James asks.

"You trusted in your friends abilities." The red being says. "You let them help you and used them for what they bring."  
>"But I do that." James says.<p>

"You do, however you carry the need to do everything." The red being says. "You realized that one person can not do it all and everyone shares equal responsibility on this team."

"So I assume that my team is being tested as well." James says.

"Yes, by other elemental avatars." The red being says.

"So what do I do now?" James asks.

"Well time is relative here." The red being says. "It will appear that you arrive all at the same time; which means you are on your way to Earth. Zordon will explain everything and the last thing I have to say is good luck."

James attempts to protest but soon disappears.

Meanwhile…

The group gets out of the car and walks toward the school. They are all laughing and joking together as they walk up to the building. Once they get to the door, they all see Keri walking in. Keri looks at the group longingly. Justin steps forward.

"What are you looking at freak?" Justin spits.

"Failure" Keri says as the group sniggers.

"Haha, I guess being a bitch comes with the territory of being a loser." Justin retorts.

"Don't forget being a skank." Phil chimes in.

"Please, like anybody would sleep with that." Wendy says. "I've seen football players with fewer bruises."

"Stop it." Keri says.  
>"Aww, the little freak can't stand it when the failure manages to have more friends than her and parents that actually care about him." Justin says viciously.<p>

Keri starts to cry profusely as she runs into the building.

"Aren't you guys going to go after her?" Mike asks.

"No" James says.

"Why should we?" Justin says.

"Because she is distraught…" Mike says.

They all look at Mike for a moment and start laughing.

"Come on man, you're killing us today." James says. "Let's get to class."

Mike looks worriedly down the hallway after Keri. The day turned out rather uneventful. Mike was concerned about the way that the guys treated Keri and tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

'What the hell is up?' Mike thinks as his last class is ending. 'This is not right; none of it is. I just can't make out how the world is supposed to be. Maybe…'

"Mikey, snap out of it." Phil yells.

"Huh, what?" Mike says shaking his head.

"It's time to go man, school is over." Wendy says.

"Oh okay." Mike says as he grabs his stuff.

The group leaves the classroom and meets up with James and Justin. The full group goes to their lockers to pick up their stuff. Then they proceed to go to the exit of the school. They all talk excitedly about what each of them are going to do with their afternoon. Mike didn't say anything to them; instead he looks off down the way. He sees Keri walking across the parking lot. She looks quite sad until three monstrous creatures appear out of nowhere and surrounded her.

"Guys, there are things over there attacking Keri." Mike says.

"So" Wendy says.

"Well it looks like she needs help." Mike says.

"In more ways than one..." Justin says laughing.

"Dude it's not funny." Mike says angrily. "She could get hurt."

"Calm down bro, I guess we can call the police or like animal control or something like that." James says.

"For her or those things..." Justin says still laughing.

Mike looks at his friends then back to Keri. He faced his internal struggle that he always had. He wants to go and help her but all he's wanted was a normal life. At that moment, his life as a ranger flashed before eyes. He remembered all of the anguish he suffered being Night Wolf and how much he just wanted everything to be normal. That is all he ever wanted, not to be ranger. He didn't want to save people anymore, he didn't want the responsibility. However, he sees Keri in trouble and knows that it's the right thing to do to help her. He doesn't want to be like his friends, he can't just sit back and let her get hurt. The Power Rangers exist for a reason and he is ready to accept that.

"Get away from her you god-damned freaks." Mike says as he runs towards the beasts.

Keri closes her eyes and screams as one of the beasts lunges at her. She waits for the strike to happen but it did not. She opens her eyes and sees Mike punch the beast in the face.

"Get out of here." Mike yells as he kicks the other beast in the chest.

"What about you?" Keri asks.

"Don't worry about me, just go!" Mike says as one of the beasts pounces on him.

Keri runs behind a car as Mike kicks the beast off of him. He tries to hold off the beasts as long as he can, but they start to be too much for him. One of the beasts tackles him and the other two circle him. As the he feels the impending doom, he suddenly fells something different akin to a well of pride swell within him.

"I want to be a Ranger again!" Mike yells.

Suddenly, a black rectangle appears above Mike and seems to drive away the beasts. Mike reaches up and grabs the I-pod looking device. Once he holds it in his hand, it feels almost natural to morph.

"Elemental Power Energize!" Mike yells.

Suddenly, Mike is engulfed in the black energy that surrounds him. A small circular emblem appears behind Mike. As the energy slowly recedes, a sleek black uniform is revealed. Soon the transformation is complete with Mike in the Black Ranger uniform which is predominately black with a white trim which travels along his arms and legs. It connects to an emblem in the center which has the circular emblem along with five other symbols.

"Black Gravity Ranger!" Mike yells.

The scene soon flattens as if it had been steam rolled and soon there is a dark void. Within the dark void, blackness appears with a white outline of a humanoid shape.

"Michael, you have passed the exam that I have put forth." The being says.

"What test?" Mike asks.

"In order to receive the power of the elemental rangers, you must pass a test set forth by an avatar of the elements." The being begins. "You chose being a Power Ranger over something that you've wanted more than anything else. You chose that over being normal and not being a Power Ranger. You made the important decision to put the needs of others before the wants of yourself. That is a very important lesson to understand."

"So where are the 'real' others?" Mike asks.

"They, like you, are being tested by other elemental Avatars." The dark being says. "They will return to Earth if they have passed their test."

"What if they don't?" Mike asks.

"Then they are lost in that dimension forever." The being says.

"What?" Mike says angrily.

"Calm yourself Michael." The being says. "You all were chosen by the animal spirits for your incredible skills. Have faith that your friends will be as successful as you."

"I guess." Mike says.

"The time is here for you to return." The being says "Have faith you will see all of your friends and Zordon will explain everything. Good luck to you Michael."

Mike disappears as the being drifts back into the darkness. Elsewhere…

"I can't." Keri says. "I am not evil."

"It's who you are Keri." Phil says. "You showed us the way. This is all because of you and now you're lost. We can help you find the way."

"No, I don't need your help!" Keri says as she pushes Phil back.

Keri turns around and starts to run. She runs as fast as she can in any direction. She dodges lightning which strikes the Earth around her. She couldn't deal with it; it is all too much. She finally stops to catch her breath. She huffs and huffs as air flows through her lungs.

"You can't run from us." A male voice says.

Keri turns around; startled. She sees all of her friends standing there in their altered state.

"You're all not real." Keri says. "There is no way in the world any of you would ever turn evil."

"We all have our dark sides Keri." Mike says. "You missed mine as Night Wolf."

"And mine as Shadow Queen." Wendy says.

"We're all capable of being evil." James says. "But you know that better than anyone else, don't you?"

"No, I don't know what you're talking about." Keri says.

"I think you do." Justin says. "It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. You moved into Manhattan because your parents wanted to move you away from good old Angel Grove. This was after a recent problem Angel Grove had of an "Evil Ranger" going around terrorizing citizens. Now put two and two together…"

"How did you know?" Keri asks.

"Keri, I know everything." Justin simply replies.

"No, this is just all in my mind." Keri says. "That's all this is."

"Oh we are very much real." Mike says.

"Enough it's time for you to join the fold again." James says

"Never, I will fight you." Keri says as she moves into a fighting stance.

"Keri…" Phil begins to say.

Keri runs up and kicks Phil in the chest. He falls to the ground as Wendy tries to punch Keri. Keri ducks under her punch and delivers a powerful uppercut. Wendy flies backwards as Justin comes in with a double kick. Keri parries both kicks and begins jabbing him. Justin falls to his knees as Mike and James come in for a sweep kick. Keri falls forward, grabs Justin, flips him and throws him forward. She recovers and turns around to see the rangers on their feet with no apparent wear from the battle. Keri is breathing slightly harder than she was before. She turns and runs at them again. She focuses her energy on trying to defeat them. She thinks that might be the way to get out of here. However every time she fights them, they would just get back up with no visible wear. After a couple of hours, Keri is exhausted.

"Keri, now do you realize it's futile to fight us." James says.  
>"No, you're evil." Keri huffs. "I've tried so hard to make up for that incident. I am not evil, I am good and I will fight until I take my last breath."<p>

"Keri, have you learned nothing?" Phil says sighing with resignation. "You can't fight it and you can't fight us. You can't run from it; it's just who you are."  
>"No" Keri says.<p>

"Yes, it's just as much a part of you as your brown hair." Wendy says.

"The past defines us Keri." Justin says. "It makes us who we are and we must accept it. Each of us has darkness within us that we must face at one point or another. Keri, the darkness is apart of you and always will be."

"You're right; I do have a darkness within me." Keri says. "But I realize that there is something that I have as well. Along with darkness comes light, the light illuminate all!"

Suddenly a yellow rectangular box appears bathing the area in a brilliant golden light. The box floats down to Keri and she takes hold of it. She feels a warm glow engulf her and knows exactly what to do.

"Elemental Power Energize" Keri yelled.

Suddenly a light of yellow energy engulfs Keri and completely surrounds her. A small sun emblem appears behind her. The light starts to recede as a dazzling yellow Ranger uniform is revealed. A thin white trim goes from her arms and legs to her chest where the sun emblem and five other symbols appear.

"Yellow Light Ranger!" Keri yells.

The scene begins to burn away as the light generated from Keri destroys all of the darkness. The light becomes too much for Keri and she closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she is in a dark void. She gasps as a being of pure light appears. This being looks humanoid in shape and speaks rather softly.

"You have done well Keri." The being says.

"What is this? Who are you?" Keri asks.  
>"I am the elemental avatar of light." The being says. "This has been a test to see if you are worthy of being the elemental ranger of light and you passed."<p>

"How could I? I have darkness in me." Keri says.

"Yes you do." The being says. "Everyone does, but you are willing to embrace the light and shine it upon others. That is what is most important."  
>"Well that makes sense I guess." Keri says. "Oh, where are the others?"<p>

"They are undergoing their own tests." The being says. "They are being tested by other elemental avatars to see if they are worthy. But the time grows near for you to return to Earth. Be safe my young warrior of light and shine a bright as the glowing sun." 

Keri is about to question the being further, but soon disappears. Meanwhile…

Justin watches as his dream teleport away; off to battle.

"I can't believe these things are real." Justin says.

"Yeah and we have you to thank." Keri says.

"Yea without thinking up this idea and coming up with the tech, we would never come up with a way to combat Blackborg." Phil says.

"So why didn't we go with a human operator." Justin asks.

The group looks at him oddly.

"You were the one that was staunchly against it." Wendy says walking up to Justin. "You said that human emotions would get in the way of logic."

"You also said that humans would not be able to do what is necessary." Phil says. "You were adamant that the logic aspect of the brain is far superior and technology reflects that."

"I guess that is true." Justin replies.

Justin turns his attention to the viewing screen to watch the rangers in action. In the field, the rangers see three beings. The one in the center appears to be a mechanical lion, while the one to the left appears to be a mechanical bee and the one to the right appears to be a mechanical lizard.

"Three targets acquired." The blue ranger says. "Presume to be the threat which has caused alarm."

"Evaluating threat level…" The pink ranger says. "Threat level: code yellow."

"Caution should be had, but their strength appears to be mediocre." The crimson ranger says.

"Initiate combat tactic thirteen." The red ranger says.

"Affirmative" The rest of the rangers say.

The robot rangers engage the three monsters. The Pink and Gold Rangers go after the mechanical bee, the Blue and Green Rangers go after the mechanical lizard and the Crimson and Red Rangers go after the mechanical lion. The rangers manage to get the upper hand soon enough as the robots fell back. The lion looks over at the crowd of people in the distance and its eyes begin to glow. Suddenly, three people appear in front of the three monsters as human shields.

"Hahaha" The lion says. "Now that there are humans in front of us, you would not dare strike us."

"Evaluating situation" The red robot ranger says.

"The three animal monsters are gaining more energy." The blue robot ranger says.

"Every course of action to save the three individuals will result in massive collateral damage as well as loss of life." The Pink robot says.

"Identifying humans captured." The Yellow robot says. "Identification confirmed; three recent parolees from Rikers."

"Appropriate course of action determined; termination." Red robot says.

Meanwhile, back at the base…

"What did they just order?" Justin exclaims.

"Termination" Wendy replies casually.

"Why?" Justin asks.

"Because statistically, that is the best option." Keri replies. "We used the logic design you came up with. You gave them the capability of judgment based on logic. Therefore, the decisions that they make are a direct reflection of you."  
>"No, I wouldn't —" Justin says.<p>

"You created them to be logical like yourself." Phil says. "They respond to situations much like you would."

"But they should still value human life." Justin argues. "I would save people if I were in that situation."

"But that is illogical." Wendy says. "Listen Justin, I don't know what brought about this change, but we're doing good work here. If a few people get hurt, it is sad but think about the many lives they'll save doing so."

"At what expense?" Justin asks. "Who are we to justify who lives and who dies?"

"There is no need to get melodramatic about it. Those three are criminals; they don't really matter." Keri says.

"But they are still human." Justin counters.

"Logically speaking—" Phil begins.

"Screw logic, I am helping those people!" Justin says as he runs over to the computer.

Justin inputs commands and feels the familiar feeling of teleportation engulf him. Soon enough he is standing right in between the robot rangers and monsters with their criminal hostages.

"Stop!" Justin yells. "End termination command."

"Primary creator command… overridden." The red robot ranger says. "Primary creator, you have three seconds to move or be destroyed."

"You are not going to hurt these people. They are innocent." Justin says fiercely.

"The three seconds have elapsed. On my command, commence termination blast." The Red robot ranger says. "Fire!"

The six robot rangers each fire a blast of immense energy at the villains.

'I just want to stop them. I want to save everyone!' Justin thinks. 'I don't need logic and facts but the will to do so.'

As the blast draws near, it changes shape from a circular beam to a more rectangular blue box. It slows as Justin opens his eyes and reaches out. When he touches it, a blue box with white lined swirls appears in his hand. Justin knows exactly what he holds and bellows,

"Elemental Power Energize!"

On his words, he becomes engulfed in a tornado of blue energy. A symbol of wavy lines appears behind him. As the energy recedes, a deep blue Ranger uniform is revealed. There is a white trim around the arms and legs of the uniform which connects to six symbols on his chest; one of which being the wavy lines.

"Blue Wind Ranger!" Justin yelled.

The scene swirls away as Justin finds himself in a blue, cloudy realm. It looks as if Justin is standing in the middle of the sky. Justin looks around this mysterious place for any sign of life. Suddenly, a tornado erupted in front of Justin and starts to speak to him.

"You have done it Justin." The being says.

"Done what and who are you?" Justin asks bemused.

"I am the elemental avatar of wind and you have passed the trial that I have put before you." The avatar says.

"What do you mean? What happened? Where is everyone else?" Justin asks trying to wrap his mind around all of this.

"Calm yourself my wind warrior. In order to see if you and your friends were worthy of receiving the elemental powers, we set up tests." The avatar says. "You discovered that there is more to being ranger than just being intelligent."  
>"Yea, it's about being a person and trusting instinct." Justin says. "I already knew that."<p>

"Did you?" The avatar asks. "After your battle with the Psycho Blue ranger, it seemed that logic was the only thing that you could trust."

"I guess you are right about that." Justin says looking away. "I considered creating robot rangers so no one would have to go through that."

"And now you've seen why you have to take the emotions good or bad." The avatar says. "They build us into who we are and give the capability of becoming Power Rangers. Now, it is time for you to go home."

"Wait I have more questions." Justin exclaims.  
>"I am sure you do." The avatar says. "Be well young warrior."<p>

When the avatar says this, Justin disappears. In another place…

'I need to figure this out.' Wendy thinks as Judy hugs her.

"Are you alright then?" Judy asks.

"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking." Wendy says breaking the hug. "I guess it must be that time of the month."

"Oh okay" Judy says. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'll be fine." Wendy says.

"Alright, then I will see you later." Judy says.

"Later" Wendy says as Judy leaves the bathroom.

Wendy looks in the mirror and tries to think of a plan. She feels her pockets and looks for something.

'I was hoping that I would at least have my animorpher with me in this place.' Wendy thinks. 'Okay, what am I supposed to do? My friends are all not friends anymore, I don't have my powers, and I just can't deal with this. So many other people would know what to do. Justin would know what's going on; James would be able to figure out a plan; Mike would do something; Keri and Phil could even take charge and do something.'

Wendy's eyes begin to well with tears as the hopelessness of the situation hits her.

'What can I do?' Wendy thinks. 'How can I get things back to normal?'

At that moment, Keri enters the bathroom.

"Are you okay?" Keri asks.

"Oh, I'm fine." Wendy says brushing away the tears. "Are you, you look like you've been crying too."

"I… It's just been so hard since my parents got divorced." Keri says as she begins to cry again. "I don't know if I can go on. It's my entire fault anyway; I made it hard for our family."

"Don't say that Keri." Wendy says hugging her. "It's not your fault and you would be missed by a lot of people; so don't say things like that."

"I don't know why I am telling you all of this." Keri sobs. "It's not like we're even friends."

"Keri it doesn't matter if we're friends or not." Wendy says wiping her tears. "It matters that you are another human being who needs a shoulder to cry on."

"I don't understand why more people can't be like you." Keri says composing herself. "You are so compassionate and help people out all the time. I have never met someone who just brings people together and keeps them working together."  
>"I never thought about it that way." Wendy says thoughtfully.<p>

"Yea Wendy, I think it's your calling." Keri says. "Well thanks for the talk; I'll see you soon."

"Wait, can you meet me in room 223 after the last bell?" Wendy asks.

"Why?" Keri asks.

"I think I have figured something out." Wendy says. "Trust me"

"Okay I guess" Keri says leaving.

"It's up to me to bring this team back together." Wendy says as she leaves.

The day continues to pass at its leisurely pace. Soon enough the final bell rings and Wendy walks over to room 223. She peeks inside to find five, very confused teens. She recognizes them immediately as her former friends. She walks in and the others look at her with various emotions.

"I got a text saying that the mathletes meeting was moved to this room." Justin says.

"Well we got a text saying that the cheerleading team was having practice in this room." James says for him and his brother Mike.

"I thought there was dance meeting here." Phil says.

"I sent those texts." Wendy says. 'Luckily their numbers are still the same.'

"So why did you bring us all here?" Phil asks.

"Look I don't know what happened; maybe those things in the sky zapped us to alternate dimension or something." Wendy begins. "Anyway, we are best friends. I know you don't remember it, but we were also a team of power rangers that defended the Earth from an evil cyborg known as Blackborg. We beat him, but then something new came and now we need to beat that too."  
>"You do realize how insane you sound." Justin says. "I'm outta here."<p>

"Don't leave; I know I sound crazy but this is all true." Wendy says. "I bet I know you all better than you think I do."

"Fine; what is my I.Q.?" Justin asks.

"172. You were tested in the 9th grade and that is also when you were inducted into mensa." Wendy says.

"I didn't tell anyone that." Justin exclaims. "How did you know?"

"You told me when you were stressed out about all the testing and when you first got the news." Wendy says.

"Well that may be true for the nerd, but tell me this: What do I dream of doing?" James asks.

"That's easy, a cop. You wanted to become a cop because that was the closest thing you thought would be being a power ranger." Wendy says.

"Wow bro, I didn't even know that." Mike says.

"Yea, it's true." James says.

The questioning continues from person to person until the group stops in shock.

"Okay, this is freaking me out." Phil says. "How do you know so much about us?"

"I told you, we are best friends." Wendy says.

"Well why did we tell you these things?" Mike says.

"I don't really know." Wendy says. "I guess because you all trusted me with your secrets and thought you could count on me to be there."

"That is the type of person you are Wendy." Keri says as she puts her hand out. "You are there to give advice and listen to problems. I am would be glad to be your friend again."

"Yea, you seem like a pretty cool chick." Mike says as he put his hand over Keri's.

"I agree with bro; in order to know that stuff about us, you'd have to have been our best friend." James says putting his hand on Mike's.

"Based on the information you gave us, I have to come to the same assessment as the others." Justin says as he put his hand in. "I would be happy to be your friend."

"I don't know, this is all still pretty freaky." Phil says. "But, I have heard of weirder things happening. Welcome to the crew."

Phil walks over and puts his hand in the center. When he does this, a pink energy begins to form in the center of the group. Suddenly, the pink energy releases a glowing pink box which reflects light with a metallic luster. The rectangular box floats from the group over to Wendy. Wendy reaches up and grabs it. The others looked on in confusion as Wendy yells,

"Elemental Power Energize!"

On her words, she is engulfed in pink energy. A symbol of a triangle above an upside down trapezoid appears behind her. As the energy recedes, a bright pink Ranger uniform is revealed. There is a white trim around the arms and legs of the uniform which connects to six symbols on her chest; one of which being the triangle and trapezoid.

"Pink Metal Ranger!"

The pink energy still emanates from the group of friends. She looks up at them as they nod to her. She jumps towards the pink energy and is pulled into another realm. It looks as if she inside of an iron bar. Everything around her is lustrous and glistening. She looks around for some indication of anything until a silver being stands before. She immediately goes into a defensive stance.

"Be easy child, I will not harm you." The being says.

"Who are you?" Wendy says not lowering her guard.

"I am the avatar of metal." The avatar says. "It is I who tested you and you have passed."

"What test?" Wendy asks.

"The test of being worthy enough to have the elemental powers of metal." The avatar says. "You are and now they belong to you."  
>"How did I do that?" Wendy asks.<p>

"You rediscovered the compassion that you have within you." The avatar says. "You still blamed yourself for becoming the Shadow Queen, not foreseeing what happened to Justin, losing your powers, and a world of other things. You are not going to be able to prevent everything, you just need to remember to be there when the bad happens. The group needs your ability to keep people together. It's the foundation for a team and is going to be needed soon."

"What do you mean?" Wendy says.

"I have said too much and you must go." The avatar says.

"But—" Wendy starts.

"Goodbye Wendy." The avatar says.

Wendy disappears from that plane of existence. Elsewhere, Phil wakes up in a place that is blurry and unfamiliar to him. As his eyes come into focus, he sees a dark room with dim red lights. As he tries to move, he hears the rattling of chains. He looks over to see his arms and his legs are shackled.

"What the—" Phil says.

"It's hopeless green ranger." Andromeda says.  
>"Andromeda, let me go!" Phil says.<br>"Why should I?" Andromeda replies.

"If you don't, my friends are going to come and destroy you to free me." Phil says defiantly.  
>"Do you really think they would come?" Andromeda laughs.<p>

"Yes, they would give their lives to make sure that I am safe." Phil says.  
>"What do you think they are doing right now?" Andromeda says.<p>

"Figuring out a way to save me." Phil says.

"Well look over there green ranger." Andromeda says as she points to the right.

Phil looks in the direction Andromeda is pointing in and sees an image. He sees the rangers in central park throwing around the football and having a picnic. They are laughing and enjoying themselves. Phil looks on with shock and anger.

"You're lying." Phil says. "That isn't true."

"Why would I lie, when the truth is hurting so much more?" Andromeda cackles. "I will leave you for now. Oh and just so you know, that apparatus hooked up behind you will deliver a painful stream of electricity once every ten minutes. Enjoy the show."

Andromeda walks out the room to the sound of Phil screaming in agony. A few hours later…

"Why are the guys not helping me?" Phil asks delirious with pain. "Why have they abandoned me?"

"We've abandoned you?" James says from the screen.

"Finally, I need you to help me." Phil says.

"I thought you were the protector of the power rangers." James says. "Aren't you supposed to be protecting us?"

"Well it's a two-way street." Phil struggles. "I thought we were friends."

"We are, but there is something you need to discover." James says. "You're a clever kid, you'll figure it out."

"What!" Phil yells as another stream of electricity courses through his body.

This last jolt exhausts Phil immensely. His eyes droop heavily. He feels his brain slowing with each passing minute.

'So this is what dying feels like." Phil thinks. 'No, I am not going die; I won't give in. If the group is not going to get me out of this, I am getting myself out of this. I am tired of being the one that doesn't fit it in. I am sick of just being the one who's there. I am Phil, green ranger and defender of good. Whether it is the others that I have to defend, innocents, or myself; I will give my heart and soul to making sure that we will be free.'

As his mind begins to shut down, a bright green light beams down on Phil. Phil feels energy returning to him as he opens his eyes. The first thing he sees is a forest green rectangular box. He feels compelled to reach out and grab it. He tugs at the chains but they do not budge. Phil puts his full strength into grabbing the box. The box glows brighter as Phil breaks the chains and grabs it. With new found strength, Phil yells,

"Elemental Power Energize!"

Suddenly, Phil is engulfed in the green energy. A small, jagged, circular emblem appears behind Phil. As the energy slowly recedes, a sleek green uniform is revealed. Soon the transformation is complete with Phil in the Green Ranger uniform which is predominately green with a white trim which travels along his arms and legs. It connects to an emblem in the center which has the jagged, circular emblem along with five other symbols.

"Green Earth Ranger!" Phil yells as everything explodes in green energy.

Phil is launched into another area which looks quite cave-like. There are stalagmites and stalactites everywhere. Phil looks at his surrounding area to gage where he is. The ground begins to rumble as a rock creature erupts from the ground. Phil assumes a fighting pose and goes to strike the creature. All of a sudden, he finds himself paralyzed.

"Whoa there" The creature says. "No need to be violent."

"What have you done to me?" Phil yells.

"I just disabled your ability to move." The creature says. "I am the avatar of Earth and since that suit draws on my power, I can effectively control it."

"Alright, then can you explain to me what happened?" Phil asks.

"You were just tested and passed." The avatar says.

"You did that to me?" Phil exclaims.

"Yes and no." The avatar says. "More like, it is because of me that you are tested, but the power creates the test."

"What 'power'?" Phil asks.

"The power of the elements." The avatar states. "It is a power so primal that it was forged from the fires that created your universe. It looks deep within the person and tests them as it sees fit."

"So, are the others being tested as well?" Phil asks.

"Yep" The avatar says. "Oh darn, it's time for you to go."

"What? But I have more questions." Phil says quickly.

"And they will be answered." The avatar says. "Farewell"

Phil tries to object further but he soon disappears. The sky on earth is dark as night has fallen. Six bright lights illuminate the sky over the ruins of the former power chamber. Six figures crash to the ground at this sacred site. They lie on the ground lifeless until energy engulfs them and they each feel the familiar feeling of teleportation.


	3. Transformation Part III: Defenders Again

**Chapter Three: Transformation Part III: Defenders Again**

There is a part of space that lies beyond the outer atmosphere of Earth. It is here where satellites gingerly orbit and a small tear reside. Within this small tear lies an alternate dimension that rests beside our own. It is here that a medieval style castle floats in the starless, planetless, space. Within this castle, six figures are sitting around a round table that has an inverted pentagram in the center. Each figure is sitting in medieval armor that has a different color: Red, Blue, Yellow, Black, Pink and Green. The armor is the same in style as medieval but is different aesthetically. It appears to be sleeker and more form fitting. The figures appear to be in deep discussion.

"My friends, the time is finally here." The Blue Knight says. "It has been three months from today since the Elemental Avatars bestowed our powers unto us. Since that day, we have been training rigorously to take over the Earth."

"So we finally get to cause some trouble?" The Pink Knight says maliciously.

"Yes, but we also must be aware." The Blue Knight says cautiously. "I have been made aware of forces that will oppose us. They have not arrived yet, but I fear they might prove to be…troublesome."  
>"Are you saying there might be someone who can beat us?" The Red Knight says.<p>

"Not beat us, just prove to be formidable." The Blue Knight says. "We must continue our training to ensure our victory for our Elemental Avatars."

"Do we know anything more about the elemental rejects?" Yellow Knight says.

"Unfortunately no." The Blue Knight says. "The Avatars have not given me any further information. However, this means that we should be on our guard and prepared for anything."

"So are we going to actually attack the Earth or just sit here and talk about it?" The Black Knight says anxiously.  
>"Yes, after today's training session." The Blue Knight says. "Are there any other questions?"<p>

The group shakes their heads.

"Good; let's make this world ours." The Blue Knight says.

Elsewhere, the group all wakes up at the same time. They all feel the comfortable mattress supporting their exhausted bodies. They all hear the steady beeping of a heart monitor. The first thing they see is the whitish-blue light emanating from the florescent lights of this strange place. They all are wearing oxygen masks to assist breathing. James is the first to lift his hand to his face and remove the mask. The others follow in suit and remove the monitors. They are exhausted, sore, confused, and hungry.

"Guys?" James says weakly. "Is it really you?"

"I was wondering the same thing." Phil says rubbing his head.

"Phil!" Keri says running up to him and wrapping her arms around his waist. "I thought I would never see you again."

"James!" Wendy says pulling him into a tight hug and passionate kiss. "I missed you so much."

"I am sorry to break up this wonderful reunion, but where the hell are we?" Mike asks.

"I would say a hospital, but that is too much to hope for." Justin says. "This looks kinda like the old power chamber medical facility."

"A lot of these machines weren't here before, were they?" James asks.

"No which makes me question the assessment." Justin says as he runs his hands through his hair. "What I wonder is where is the exit?"

"That is a good question." Keri says.

"Oh guys, do you have one of these?" Wendy says as she pulls out an I-pod looking device.

"Yea" They each say and pull out their own device.

"Okay, that's a good thing." James says. "That means we each have our powers back."  
>"Well technically not back, but new." Justin says. "These are not the Omega Powers; I remember a being describing them as Elemental powers."<p>

"Yea, I went through the same thing." Phil says.

"Me too." Keri says as the rest agree.

"Alright, so we can't be in too bad a spot if we have our powers with us." James says.

"Rangers, you're awake." A familiar voice says over a loudspeaker.

"Alpha" the group exclaims.

"It's good to hear a friendly, familiar voice." James says.

"Alpha, how do we get out of here?" Phil asks.

"Rangers, you must hold your Morpher against the digital reader on the far side wall." Alpha says. "Each of you must do this to get scanned into the system. Make sure to hold the LCD screen facing the scanner."  
>"Thanks Alpha" Mike says.<p>

The rangers walk up to the scanner. Each takes their new Morphers and follows the instructions that Alpha gave.The computer in turn identifies each ranger:

"James: Red Fire Ranger - Elemental Identification accepted."

"Wendy: Pink Metal Ranger - Elemental Identification accepted."

"Justin: Blue Wind Ranger - Elemental Identification accepted."

"Phillip: Green Earth Ranger - Elemental Identification accepted."

"Keri: Yellow Light Ranger - Elemental Identification accepted."

"Michael: Black Gravity Ranger - Elemental Identification accepted"

"All Elemental Ranger identities confirmed. Welcome Rangers to the Command Core."

A portal appears before the Rangers. They walk through the portal single file. Instantaneously, they are all transported to a large circular room. The room has vaulted ceilings that are fifteen to twenty feet high. Along one wall, is an LCD screen which is 80" by 80". Behind the group are six tubes. Each tube has an animal on it. The animals are the same animals that guided the rangers in their plight against Blackborg. In front of them, surrounding the inner circle of the Command core, are several sophisticated touch screen computer counsels. Beyond the computers are a rather large tube and two electrical cylinders.

"Rangers!" Alpha says as he appears from behind a door.

"Alpha!" The Rangers exclaim with excitement.

"I missed you." Keri says hugging the robot.

"Yea, I think we all missed you." James says.

"You were missed too Rangers." Alpha says after hugging Wendy.

"I see you guys upgraded." Phil says.

"Yes" Alpha replies high fiving Phil. "The Command Core is a cutting edge base which is beyond anything this planet has ever seen.Due to the security breaches with Blackborg, there are even more security measures that are enacted now."

"I was worried since we left you with nothing." Justin says.

"We worried about you, a lot." Alpha says shaking Justin's hand. "We hoped that you would succeed in your endeavor."

"Speaking of 'we', where is Zordon?" Mike asks giving Alpha a pound.

"Zordon is not the same as he once was." Alpha says.  
>"What do you mean 'not the same'?" Phil asks<p>

"He's changed." Alpha says.

"Is he okay?" Wendy asks fearfully.

"Did he recover from Blackborg's energy drain?" Justin asks, his voice trembling slightly.

"Yes, he is fine. It's just that—" Alpha begins.

Suddenly the two electrical towers begin to hum. An aura surrounds them as electricity courses through the towers. Electricity erupts from the tops of the towers and collects in the main tube. The electrical energy begins to take a circular shape. The shape becomes more and more defined until a face appears.

"Rangers, it is good to see you again." The being says.  
>"Zordon?" James asks.<p>

"Yes James it is me." Zordon says.  
>"What happened to you?" Mike asks.<br>"It is a long story." Zordon begins. "You all have been gone for the last three months."

"That's impossible." James says.

"Yea, I was only gone for about a few hours at most." Justin says.

"Yea, that doesn't make sense." Keri says.

"Rangers please; wherever you have gone, time must've moved differently than it did here." Zordon says. "The summer is over and fall has just begun."

"What about our parents?" Wendy asks. "They must be worried sick."

"Don't worry." Zordon says. "Alpha impersonated each of you and informed your parents that you were going away to a camp for the summer as counselors."

"Well that is good." Keri says with relief. "At least we are covered."  
>"Yes, that was our first priority." Zordon says. "Our next priority was to build a base that was stronger, faster, and more advanced than anything we've ever built before. As soon as you were taken for your trials, we had to work quickly. We gathered as many things as we could and took them to a new location. Once that was done, I used the magic of the morphing grid and the materialswe still had to establish this new base. However, we still needed a power conduit. So I placed myself into the morphing grid to provide a directflow of power from the morphing grid to the Command Core."<p>

"So this entire base is now running off of the morphing grid." Phil asks.

"That is correct Phillip." Zordon says.  
>"I have a question." Justin says.<p>

"Yes Justin?" Zordon says.

"Can you explain this whole Elemental thing?" Justin asks. "I tried asking my avatar about it, but I was teleported away."

"Yea, same here." Mike says.

"Yes, computer please bring up file Elemental Drive." Zordon commands as the counsel starts glowing. "Rangers can you please turn your attention to the viewing screen."

The Rangers turn to the large LCD screen. The black screen activates as multicolored lights filled the screen. The computer soon begins to speak.

"During the big bang event which created our universe, twelve beings of immense power were created. These beings were known as avatars. Each avatar represented an element of sorts: Fire, Wind, Light, Metal, Gravity, Earth, Water, Thunder, Lightning, Space, Time, and Darkness. These elemental avatars used their powers to forge this planet to what it has become today. These avatars originally existed quite harmoniously until the latter six elemental avatars: Water, Thunder, Lightning, Space, Time, and Darkness, promoted the darker sides of human behavior while the otherspromoted the lighter side. Both used their powers at their fullest force against each other and almost destroyed the Earth. Since that battle, they have bestowed warriors with their powers to fight for them. The 'evil'avatars were defeated long ago and locked away. However, before they were locked away, they created a technological weapon which would stand against the natural powers of the elements. This weapon is known as Blackborg. End Transmission."

The Rangers let the information sink in.

"So they created Blackborg?" James asks.

"It appears so." Zordon says. "Which I believe is why defeating Blackborg released them. One hypothesis is that before their defeat, the other six avatars created Blackborg as a key to their arrival. This key was only one part; the other was the activation of the six elements which now reside in the six of you."

"Then it's my fault." James says. "If I didn't take that box, none of this would've happened."

"I disagree." Justin says. "According to Zordon's statement, the evil avatars would've been released at least partially once we defeated Blackborg. At least now we have the power to defeat this new evil."

"Justin is correct." Zordon says. "The elementals still would have been released, just less powerful than they are."

"So how powerful are they now?" Keri asks with concern.

"The elementals have had the last three months to choose new warriors and train them in the use of their power." Zordon says. "They are going to be formidable opponents."

"But we are still going to be able to beat them, right?" Phil asks.

"Rangers, this is going to be the most difficult villain to defeat." Zordon says sorrowfully. "This might even be a villain that cannot be defeated."  
>"I refuse to accept that." James says. "If the elemental powers we have defeatedthem before, they can do it again." <p>

An alarm begins to blare.

"There is a disturbance at the George Washington Bridge. Sensors indicate three elemental figures along with ten other unidentified creatures" The computer states. "Also, there are three elemental figures and fifteen creatures creating a disturbance in Chinatown."

"Well I guess we'll find out now." Justin says.

"Rangers, this is a dangerous tactic that is being played." Zordon says. "Be careful and James, the decision is yours about how you want to go about this."

"Thanks Zordon." James says. "Okay, I want Phil, Wendy and Mike to go to Chinatown and deal with the situation there. Justin, Keri and I will deal with the George Washington Bridge situation."

"I would prefer to go with Phil." Keri says.

"That is the reason why I splitthe groups the way I did." James says. "We can't have anything or anyonecloudour focus against these enemies."

"Don't worry Keri, I'll be alright." Phil says.

"Are we all good?" James says.

The Rangers nod in agreement.

"Wait; before you go, I must warn you that your powers are still being entered and established in the Morphing Grid." Alpha says. "Your weapons are our first priority and will hopefully be available soon."

"Thanks for the heads up Alpha." James says. "Let's go guys."

Alpha goes over to one of the counsels and inputs a sequence of keystrokes. The familiar feeling of surging energy flows through the Rangers as their body structure breaks down into energy. James, Justin and Keri soon find themselves outside the George Washington Bridge. They sky is dark and lightning flashes every so often. Cars are ablaze and people are screaming. They see black humanoid creatures that have red techno insignia lines all over their bodies. They appear to be attacking civilians.

"Hey Freaks!" James yells. "Leave those people alone!"

Three creatures look over at James, Justin and Keri and run over. James assumes a fighting stance and begins to give orders.

"Keri, evacuate as many civilians as you can and try to locate the three elementals." James says as he braces himself. "Justin, go with Keri and draw those creatures away."

"You got it." Justin says.

"What about you?" Keri asks.

"I am going to be a distraction." James says as he ducks under a punch. "Now go!"

Justin and Keri run toward the other seven creatures. Justin grabs one of the creatures and pulls them off a group of civilians. Keri begins to usher them away as Justin tries to defend himself. Justin appears to barely be able to hold them off as the other three creatures notice Justin fighting their companions and join the brawl. Keri uses this distraction to herd off more civilians. Justin yells in pain as Keri turns to see a kick connect to the left side of his head.

"Justin!" Keri yelled.

Keri runs over and starts attacking the creatures nearest Justin. James is dodging attacks from the three creatures attacking him and trying to land attacks as well. He lands a heavy uppercut on one of the creatures and gains an upper hand. James hears Keri's yell and is momentarily distracted. The other two creatures capitalize on this golden opportunity and attack him viciously. James is thrown backwards and lands roughly on the ground. Soon Keri and Justin are thrown next to James.

"This is not working James, we gotta morph." Keri says.

"You're right. You guys ready?" James says as he takes out his Morpher.

"Ready!" Justin and Keri yell as they compose themselves and take out their Morphers. "Elemental Power Energize!"

The trio press down on the center button on their rectangular Morphers and unleash the elemental energies. They instantly transform into the Red Fire Ranger, Blue Wind Ranger and Yellow Light Ranger respectively. With newfound strength and renewed vigor the Rangers viciously attack the creatures. The creatures are quickly overwhelmed by the brute strength of the attacks. Two of the creatures attack James as his fists and feet ignite in flame. James roundhouse kicks two of the creatures which ignites the creature crumbles it to ash. Then he ducks down and delivers another heavy upper cut to another creature; crumbling it to ash as well. Three creatures run at Justin who ducks down and sweep kicks them. The blow lifts them off their feet and a gale force wind throws them into a building which causes them to crumble into ash. The last four creatures are bludgeoning Keri to try and force her to the ground. Keri digs deep and forces herself upwards. When she stands, a brilliant, bright light emanates from her body and crumbles the last four creatures to ash.

"Keri, were you able to find the three elementals?" James asks.

"No, I was going to search until Justin yelled." Keri says.

"So it seems you Rangers were able to defeat the Trogs." The Blue Knight says.

The Rangers turn around and see three medieval looking knights standing. They see a blue, yellow and red knight with their swords drawn ready for combat.

"You must be the warriors the other elemental avatars have chosen." The Red Knight says.

"Yea, we're the elemental rangers and we're going to take you guys down." James yells.

"They seem to be very confident even though they are hopelessly outmatched." The Yellow Knight says. "It's kind of cute."

"Oh we'll show you cute." Keri retorts.

"Well prepare yourselves." The Blue Knight says.

The Knights disappear and soon reappear in front of the Rangers. They each deliver a quick slash across each Ranger's chest causingenergy to discharge from the Rangers as theyfly backwards.

"Not so confident now are you?" The Blue Knight says.

"Alpha, are the weapons online?" Justin asks over the helmet communicator.

"Yes" Alpha replies.

"Can you send them over?" James asks over his helmet communicator.

"Right away." Alpha says.

"Alright, you may have gotten a lucky shot in." James says. "But now its time to fight for real: Pyro Sword!"  
>"Aero Lance!" Justin yells.<p>

"Photon Bow!" Keri yells.

On James' command, a small flame erupts in his gloved hands. This flame gets bigger and takes the shape of a red sword with a crimson hilt. On Justin's command, a small tornado forms in his hands. The tornado gets longer and longer until it forms a sleek, double headed lance. On Keri's command, a small beacon of light forms in her hands. The light becomes longer and thinner until a yellow bow appears.

"Well it looks like the children can finally fight." The Red Knight says.

The Rangers just run toward their counterparts. However, the Red Knight cutsin front of the Blue Ranger and parrieshis lance with his sword.

"Sorry, but Blue is leader." The Red Knight says "Your fight is going to be with me."

"Alright then." Justin says.

Justin and the Red Knight trade blows; each taking and delivering hits. Justin ducks under a cross slice from the Red Knight and slices the Red Knight's hip. Energy discharges off his hip and the Red Knight growls. Justin tries to capitalize on the opening and thrusts his lance forward. The Red Knight side-steps and horizontally slashes Justin across the chest. Energy discharges off the wound and Justin falls back. The Red Knight brings hissword down and Justin reacts quickly.Justin separates his lance into two separate lances and crosses them to block the attack. His quick thinkingbrings the Red Knight forward as Justinkicks the Red Knight in the chest. The Red Knight staggers backwards from the blow.

"This is it." Justin yells as he reconnects his lance. "Aero Slash!"

Justin's lance glows with blue energy and heslices upward with one side then the other. Massive amounts of energy discharge off the Red Knight but he only staggers forward.

"Nice trick, try mine." The Red Knight says as his sword transforms into a hammer. "Lightning Hammer!"

Bolts of lightning erupt from the hammer and rapidly move toward Justin. Justin tries to use his lance to intercept the attack. Unfortunately the electricity flows through Justin's lance and all over his body; Justin yells in pain and falls to the ground. The Red Knight also drops to his knees from Justin's attack and thesurge of energy neededto attack Justin. Keri is trading blows with the Yellow Knight. The Yellow Knight seems to be the better fighter as Keri is barely able to keep up. Soon enough, the Yellow Knight punches Keri in the chest with an energized fist. Keri is thrown back several feet and uses her bow to pull herself to her feet. She draws back the bow string as three arrows of light appear. She launches them at the Yellow Knight. The Yellow Knight tries to dodge them but they follow her. The three bolts strike the Yellow Knight which causes her to fall back.

"This will end it." Keri says. "Photon Arrow!"

One large arrow of pure light appears and she releases it. The arrow strikes the fallen Yellow Knight and energy discharges off of her as she falls to the ground. Keri looks over, sees Justin and goes over to help him up while the Red Knight does the same. James and the Blue Knight slice at each other brutally. One looking at the fight would truly see the art in a great sword fight. The Blue Knight slices down while James parries with his own sword. Sparks fly as the two swords constantly clash. The stalemate leadersrefuse to give the other ground.

"You're quite good Red Ranger." The Blue Knight says straining.

"You're not too bad yourself." James replies in the same tone.

"It's time to end this." Both combatants said.

They each push each other back.

"Pyro Strike!" James yells.

"Hydro Strike!" The Blue Knight yells.

James' sword becomes engulfed in flame while the Blue Knight sword surges with water. Both warriors rush at each other and slice each other. They both end up on opposite sides of each other and fall to their knees as energy discharge off their suits.

"James!" Keri yells as she helps a limping Justin.

James looks over at his teammates and the Blue Knight looks over at his teammates. Both teams look too battered to continue.

"Until next time Rangers." The Blue Knight says as he and the other two disappear.

"Let's head back to the Command Core." James says as they teleport away.

Phil, Wendy, and Mike arrive on the scene in Chinatown to deal with the dilemma there. On arrival, the group sees civilians running away in waves away from a bunch of fires. The group makes their way through the frantic crowd and soon discovered the Trog creatures that the other group fought against.

"Those things look pretty tough." Wendy says.

"And we're outnumbered five to one." Phil says.  
>"Alright, let's morph!" Mike says as he and the others take out their Morphers. "Elemental Power Energize!"<p>

The Rangers press the center button and activate the morphing sequence. Soon enough, the trio is engulfed in energy and transformed into the Black Gravity Ranger, Green Earth Ranger, and Pink Metal Ranger. Each Ranger runs to a group of five Trogs and engage them in battle. Mike runs at five of the Trogs launchinga powerful double kick which sends two of the Trogs flying. Two other Trogs attempt to punch Mike. Mike sweep kicks one of them and uppercuts the other. The last one delivers a heavy kick to Mike's side. Mike grabs his side in pain and steps back. He quickly composes himself as the five Trogs recover and run toward him. Mike holds up his hands and the Trogs stop where they are standing. Mike smirks behind his mask and quickly lowers his arms. The five Trogs instantly become flat and turn to ash. Phil runs over to five Trogs and punches one in the face. That Trog falls back as two of the Trogs kick Phil in the chest. Phil hits the ground hard. The five Trogs surround the fallen Phil as he spin kicks them all and regains his footing. Phil back flips high in the air and lands several feet away from the downed Trogs. Phil makes a clapping motion as the asphalt surrounding the Trogs rises up and squishes them. The asphalt turns back to normal and only ash is left. Wendy reaches the last group of Trogs and ducks under a kick. She punches one in the chest and back flips. That Trog is thrown back and two others behind her try and punch her. She grabs their fists and flips them. The last Trog comes at her at her with a flying side kick. Wendy side steps, grabs his leg and throws him into the others. The impact causes the Trogs to fall to ash.

"Whew, that was a workout." Mike says. "Is everyone alright?"  
>"I am." Wendy says.<br>"Me too." Phil says. "By the way, where are the actual bad guys?"

"That is a good question." Mike says.

"You mean us." A voice says.

The group turns around as a blast hits them and knocks them back. The trio quickly recovers to see three medieval looking knights standing before them: Green, Black, and Pink.

"I guess you must be what big blue was talking about." The Green Knight says. "Not too worried though."

"You should be!" Mike says.  
>"Alpha, can you send over the weapons?" Wendy asks in her helmet communicator.<p>

"Right away." Alpha replies.

"Let's see you take this on!" Phil yells. "Stone Axe!"

"Gravity Sickle!" Mike yells.

"Metallic Flail!" Wendy yells.

On their command, their hands begin to glow. A small rock appears in Phil's hand glowing with Green energy. The rock grows bigger and more defined until a green, jade-like axe is formed. A small shard of metal appears in Wendy's hands glowing with pink energy. The shard extends and changes until a sleek Pink flail appears. A small, black, glowing orb appears in Mike's hand. This orb becomes longer and thinner until an obsidian black sickle appears in Mike's grasp.

"Well, let's get this party started!" The Black Knight yells.

The Knights and Rangers ran toward each other weapons drawn. The Black Knight brings his sword down and Mike parries it with his sickle. Sparks of energy discharge off the weapons upon impact and the two combatants are thrown backwards. Mike quickly recovers and runs at the Black Knight. He brings up his sickle to slash the Black Knight. The Black Knight side steps and hits Mike in the stomach with the hilt of his sword. Mike doubles over in pain and the Black Knight kicks him in the side of the head. Mike goes flying several feet away. Mike shakes off the blow as the Black Knight runs toward Mike with his sword over his head. Mike thinks quickly as the Black Knight rapidly approaches. When the Black Knight gets into range, Mike uses his sickle for leverage and thrust kicks the Black Knight in the chest. The Black Knight is launched into the air.

"This is it; Gravity Barrage!" Mike yells.

Mike's sickle begins to glow as Mike swipes the air. His sickle launches black energy bolts into the air that strikes the Black Knight dead on. The Black Knight hits the ground hard. Mike puts his sickle on the ground and looks triumphantly at the knight. The Black Knight presses a button.

"Don't be so smug Black Ranger." The Black Knight says. "Time Bomb Barrage!"

Suddenly tiny explosions are set off all over Mike's body. Mike yells in pain, falls to his knees, then to the ground. The Black Knight assumes a motionless state on the ground. Wendy ducks under the Pink Knight's slash. Wendy launches a heavy punch to the stomach of the Pink Knight. The Pink Knight doubles over and Wendy grabs her head. Wendy knees the Pink Knight in the face. The Pink Knight falls to the floor.

"Time to get your ass handed to you." Wendy says. "Metallic Strike!"

Wendy's flail began to glow pink. As she brings down her flail, the Pink Knight grabs her arm and roll kicks her in the chest. Wendy goes flying as her flail is thrown at the Pink Knight. The Pink Knight gets up and isstruck in the chest. Wendy lands and falls to her knees as the Pink Knight falls to one knee. Both barely have energy to do anything. Phil slices diagonally down at the Green Knight. The Green Knight side steps and swipes Phil's right ankle. Phil instinctively grabs it and the Green Knight slashes him across his back. Phil falls to one knee as the Green Knight thrusts forward. Phil leans to the left, takes the blunt end of his axe and bashes the Green Knight in the left knee. The Green Knight howls in pain as Phil rolls forward and recovers.

"Why you insufferable little whelp." The Green Knight says as his fencing sword turns into a staff. "Thunderous Blow!"

The Green Knight swung his staff and extended it. The staff came at the left side of Phil's head. Phil used his axe to block the blow, but energy discharged off his suit as vibrations ripple all over his suit. Phil grabs his chest and falls to one knee.

"Time to finish you…" The Green Knight begins until something catches his attention. "It looks like we are being beckoned back to our base. Luck has shown you grace on this day, but next time you will not be so lucky."

With those words, the three knights disappear.

"Are you okay?" Phil asks as Wendy and Mike limp over.

"Yes, more or less." Wendy says.

"Been better and been worse." Mike says.  
>"Well let's head back to the Command Core." Phil says.<p>

"Good idea." Wendy says.

The trio is engulfed in a familiar energy and teleports back to their base. In another dimension, the elemental Knights gather.

"Why did you call me back?" The Green Knight says. "I was about to end that Green Ranger's existence."  
>"We are more powerful as a group and you had two downed teammates with you." The Blue Knight says. "We underestimated how powerful these Rangers are. It is okay because this was our first confrontation with them, but we must not do it again."<br>"There is one good thing from this." The Red Knight says. "We dealt them serious blows and almost took them out."

"That is true." The Pink Knight says.  
>"We also know how they fight." The Yellow Knight says. "That can give us an edge."<p>

"You both are correct." The Blue Knight says. "These next couple of battles, we need to get more information about them. Then we will strike them with deadly precision."

The Knights all nod in agreement. At the Command Core, the Rangers arrive battered and exhausted from their first confrontation.

"Zordon, we got our asses handed to us out there." Mike says.  
>"Same here" Justin says.<p>

"What are we going to do?" Keri says.

"How are we going to fight them?" Wendy asks.  
>"This is unbelievable." Phil says.<br>"Rangers, calm yourselves." Zordon says. "I understand your frustration in dealing with this new enemy. They are a powerful force which this world has not seen for millions of years. You must keep in mind that you also have a force to match them. You also have a bond forged in friendship not just in power. That is the key that you have."  
>"Zordon is right guys." James says. "We may have gotten a little roughed up in this first fight, but we just gotta get back up and step up our game. We have a team that is unstoppable and we need to use that to defeat these Elemental Knights. So let's get back to our families, rest, and recover."<br>"James is right." Zordon says. "We will keep you informed as things progress with your powers."

"Before you go, come with me so we can take care of those injuries." Alpha says.

The Rangers followed Alpha to the medical facility and received treatment for their injuries. Theyeach grab the stuff Alpha took and teleport back to their respective homes to sleep in their actual beds for a change.


	4. The Cover of Night

**Chapter Four: The Cover of night**

Days after the Elemental Knights' attack, the Power Rangers are able to return home and rest; a rest that all of them truly needed. It's been over three months since they were in the alternate dimension and the appearance of this enemy, which is in a class of their own,has really exhausted the Rangers. But now the Rangers are trying to get back to some sort of normalcy.

In James and Mike's apartment**, **on a small brown desk an alarm clock hits eight and rings.A hand reaches up from under a blanket and slams on the desk until it lands on the clock, stopping the ring. James sits up from under his blanket and rubs his eyes, taking a deep breath before heading towards the window. The sun shines brightly into the room when he opens the curtain and the sight of the breathtaking Manhattan skyline fills James view.

'I'm glad to be home.' James thinks as he walks out of his room and down a hall. He approaches his brother's door and knocks.

"Hey Bro, I'm heading out with Wendy in a few, hit up my cell if you need anything." James says.

All that comes from Mike's room is a groan, whichJames assumes is a response and goes back to his room to change into a red t-shirt and a pair of jeans. After a few minutes, he leaves his apartment and heads down the street. The New York City sky is clear and the ground below is busy with people and traffic. James walks with his hands in his pockets and is deep in thought about what the next move the Rangers could make against the Knights.

'They are as strong as we are; we have to find a way to overcome them. Hopefully Justin has come up with a way to get more information on them. We can't go in blind; that will just cause us to fail which is not an option. No one can get hurt.'

James thinks more and more, going deeper and deeper into his past failures; attacking Justin, Mike and Wendy becoming evil and the attack on Phil. After an hour and ahalf of walking, James finally arrives at Wendy's place. He rings the door bell and waits as the door opens. Wendy comes out in a pink shirt and a pair of Capri pants.

"Hey." James saysas he smiles and waves his hand**.**

"Hey honey." Wendy says then hugs and kisses James hello.

"So what's the plan for the day?" Wendy asks as James and her walk off the steps of her house and down the block.

"Well I was planning on just going for a nice walk through Central Park." James says.

Wendy glares at James and says,

"The only reason you want to take awalk is because you don't have any money."

James smiles and shakes his head at the comment before saying,

"I have money; I just figured that we should take advantage of the day."

James takes Wendy's hand and starts to walk towards the park. While James and Wendy are on their outing, Justin is at home eating a bowl of cereal and getting ready for the day ahead of him. On the table arepapers spread out with notes written on them about the current Ranger'spower and the Knights. The notes looked like scribbles on apage, but to someone of Justin's intelligence it revealed formulas on how to increase the power of the Rangers.

"Think, think, think" Justin says as he taps his pencil on the table then eats a spoonful of cereal. "I just don't have enough information on these Knights to come up with a plan. Maybe some time away from my Ranger duties will be good for me."

Justin walks out of hishome, leaving his breakfast half eaten and runs out to his car. Justin picks up his phone and calls Phil to see what he was doing.

"Hey Phil, what are you up to right now?" Justin asks as he drives.

All that could be heard in the background was the sound of falling pots and pans and a screaming child.

"Phil, are you ok?"

"I'm busy watching my cousin Marcus, I'll call you later." Phil says before hanging up his phone in a hurry.

Justin looks at his phone, and then calls Mike. After several seconds of waiting, a groggy voice answers the phone.

"Hey."

"Mike, are you busy today?"

"I'm going to take this time to rest and hang around the house for the first time in three months. What are you up to?"

"I'm just trying to get away from work. Maybe I'll call Keri." Justin says with a slight disappointment in his voice.

"Keriisn't around; her family took her on vacation since she hasn't been home. But man I'm tired, so I'll talk to you later."

"Alright." Justin says hanging up the phone as he drives. Justin continues to drive until he makes it to a parking lot and drops off his car. As Justin walks around the parking lot, he takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh, 'So I guess I'm on my own for the day**.**'

As Justin makes his way out of the lot,the sunlight hits him in theface. The sun was bright and seemed to symbolize the start of a new day for him.Justin makes his way towards the park, where Wendy and James are still on their date.

"So what's on your mind?" Wendy asks as she looks into James' eyes.

"There isn't anything, baby." James says.

"You have that look of concern on your face; it's like you're not even enjoying yourself."

"I am. Hell, it was my idea that we go out today."

Wendy glares at James as his attitude seems to change and says,

"See, there is something eating at you."

"Look, I just want to enjoy the day. I'm sorry that my head is in another place right now."

"What are you thinking about?"

"Well, it's the damn Knights. I can't seem to get them out of my mind. Theblue one was on par with me."

Wendy pauses, turns James to face her and leans in to kiss him. She then whispers,

"You're our leader and you think too much. We will beat them James."

Wendy kisses him again,which brings James out of the feeling of gloom and anger that he was in. They continue to walk through the park which is filled with people whom seem to be enjoying the day and taking advantage of the beautiful weather. Above them in a pocket dimension next to ours, the Blue Knight is sitting at his round table; deep in thought.

'The Red Ranger… It's been a long time since I have battled someone that was my equal. I can't even say that about my own warriors. I want to test this Ranger.' The Blue Knight thinks as he gets up from the table and walks around the castle to check on his Knights.

He makes his way to a window that shows the courtyard where the Green Thunder Knight and the Yellow Time Knight were sparring with each other.

"Attention!" The Blue Knight says as the two knights below stop their training and turns their attention towards the window.

"Yes, Lord!" both Knights say as they sheathe their swords.

"Green come to the main hall, I have need of you." The Blue Knight orders, turns around and starts to head back to the main hall. After a few moments, the Green Knight is in the main hall standing at attention as the Blue Knight sits at the table.

"What is it that you need of me?" The Green Knight says.

"I need you to go through your army and find me a creature that I could use to test the Rangers on Earth."

"What kind of destruction are you looking to do sir?"

"I want something that will push the Red Ranger and the rest of his band of fighters to the edge."

"I have the perfect candidate. He will not only cause damage to those Rangers, but to the Earth itself."

"Good, sendit to Earth now!"

In the park, Wendy and Jamessit on a bench watching the people at play. They both are thinking about their lives and the new direction it has taken over the last couple of years. It has been a journey that the two of them took and yet they returnedback into each other's arms at the end of the day. Justin strolls in the park in his blue polo shirt and a pair of shorts when he notices James and Wendy on the bench.

"Hey guys!" Justin shouts and waves at the two teens.

James and Wendy turn their heads and see Justin. Both of them smile as they get up from the bench and walk over to Justin.

"What are you doing out here?" Justin asks as he gives a pound to James and then a hug to Wendy.

"Nothing really, just enjoying the day." Wendy says with a smile on her face.

"We are on a date, kind of." James says.

"But we weren't doing anything major, James." Wendy says with a stern tone in her voice. "What are you doing today Justin?"

"Nothing, I just needed to get away from all the work I've been putting in on these Knights." Justin says.

"I was meaning to ask you Justin, did you find out any information on them?" James asks.

"No, not really. Whatever information that I have gathered on them is from the Command Core's databanks."

"We need a good plan to go toe-to-toe with them."

"We will, I just need more time."

Wendy looks at both James and Justin shaking her head when she says said,

"I thought you both wanted to stop thinking about these Knights and yet you're spending time talking about them. Jeez, just enjoy the day."

Both James and Justin look at Wendy and understand the truth behind her statement;they came out today to get their minds off the Knights.

"You're right honey." James says.

"Yea." Justin says.

"Good, now let's just take a walk. Maybe in a few minutes we can try to call Mike and Phil to see if they want to come out and hang with us." Wendy says.

"Well it's just going to be the three of us today. Mike is probably asleep, Phil is watching his cousin and Keri is on vacation with her family." Justin says.

"Well that's fine, it can just be us and I don't want any more 'work' talk between the two of you." Wendy says with a smile on her face.

As the Rangers walk around the park, a sudden vibration comes from James' new Morpher. He reaches into his pocket and pulls it out to see Zordon's face on the screen.

"What's the problem, Zordon?" James asks as Justin and Wendy pull out their morphers.

"Rangers, we have a elemental proximity alarm going off. In your area, there seems to be an increase in the darknesselement. I need you three to check it out." Zordon says**.**

"We're on it." James says.

The Rangers look around but don't notice anything until the sky starts to grow dark and a black film starts to cover the sun. The people at the park look up and see a creature with medieval armor which covers its body except the right arm, which is bigger than the left, and has a large claw-like hand that is producing a smog-like substance which fills the air.

"To the citizens of the planet Earth, I request that you turn over your precious Power Rangers. If you don't, I will cover your sun and kill your planet. I know you humans need this ball of light to survive. Now which is more important, your lives or the lives of the Power Rangers?" The monster says as it floats in the air while more and more smog like substance flows from its hand.

The people below start to panic and run out of the park in fear as the monster starts to descend from the sky and lands on the ground.

"Well I guess that the lives of your Rangers are a little more important than your own." The monster says as it walks the park with his arm in the air. After the coast is clear, James, Wendy and Justin appear from behind a large bush and confront the beast.

"So you're the one that is blocking our sun!" James says as Justin and Wendy stand next to him.

"Yes I am,and in case you missed the announcement I made; if you give me the Power Rangers I will stop this. If you don't**, **I will continue this until your ball of light is covered." The monster says.

"First tell me your name." Jamessays.

"Fine, my name is Sir Veil, one of the Green Knight's personal soldiers." The monster says.

"Good, it's always better to know who we are fighting." Wendy says as she takes a fighting stance**.**

"You humans are going to stand up to me?" Sir Veil says as he lets out a laugh before the other two Rangers take their fighting stances.

"You wanted the Power Rangers, you got them!" Justin says.

"What?" The monster exclaims.

"Ready?" James says as he takes out his morpher.

"Ready" Justin and Wendy sayas they took out their morphers.

"Elemental Power Energize!" The three Rangers say in unison and they morph into their Ranger uniforms.

"Red Fire Elemental Ranger!" James says as he takes his stance.

"Blue Wind Elemental Ranger!" Justin says as he takes his stance.

"Pink Metal Elemental Ranger!" Wendy says as she takes her stance.

"Only three of you?I was hoping for all six, but Lord Blue will take this. Once I bring you back, I will be a Lord myself." Sir Veil says as he summons the Trogs around him to fight the Rangers.

"Let's go guys!" James commands as he runs into the crowd of Trogs that block off Sir Veil.

Justin runs into the crowd with his arm pulled back and punches one of the Trogs in the face as Wendy jumps over two of them and turns to sweep kick both. James is surrounded by Trogs and elbows one of them that are behind him and side kicks one that is in front of him. Two of the Trogs grab his arms while one starts to punch him in the chest. Justin leaps over the Trog that he is fighting and calls out for his weapon,

"Aero Lance!"

As his weapon completely formsin his hand, one of the ends stabs through one of the Trogs that is holding James. Once James is free, he punches the Trog that was holding his other arm while Justin slashes the one that had been punching James.

"Thanks Just." James says as he opens his hand and calls, "Pyro Sword"**.**

The fire builds up in his hand until the sword is formed and he stabs one of the Trogs that is surrounding Justin and himself.

"Where is Wendy?" James asksas he shoves one of the Trogs that is reaching out for him.

"I think she is over there!" Justin says as he points towards Sir Veil whileWendy runs towards the monsterwith her Metal Flailswinging in the air.

"Metallic strike!" Wendy shouts as she swings her flail in the air**. **The spiked ball strikes Sir Veil in the face and then he turns slowly back to Wendy.

"You dare strike your better?" Sir Veil says as he holds his face.

"My better?I have more where that came from.**" **Wendy says as she takes a fighting stance.

Sir Veil runs at Wendy with his claw hand swinging at her, but Wendy continues to jump back from the oncoming assault. Wendy swings her flail again and strikes Sir Veil on the side, but he grabs the ball end of the flail and turns the tables on her as he uses it as a handle and swings Wendy around on the other end. Wendy holds onto the handle of her flail as she is being tossed around and around. Wendy's efforts to stop the monster actually begin to distract the villain from producing the black substance that was blocking the sun. The sky started to clear as three beams of light teleported onto the battlefield.

"What took you guys so long?" Justin asks as he holds off more Trogs.

"Whatever that black substance covering the area was,stopped our teleportation here." Keri says as she fires Photon Arrow into three Trogs.

"Be happy that we're here." Mike says as he cuts through a few Trogs with his Gravity Sickle.

"It's always better to have the whole team here." James saysas he cuts more Trogs.

"Phil,how did you get away from Marcus?" Justin asks.

"I placed the kid in front of the T.V. which should keep him entertained for a few hours." Phil says as he cut a few Trogs with his axe.

"Now let's get to Wendy!" James says as he and the other Rangers fight their way through the crowd.

When the rangers make quick work through the Trogs, they find Wendy on the ground after being thrown with her flail away from him.

"Look what you have done!" Sir Veil says as he swings his large claw hand at Wendy.

As his claw is about make contact with Wendy, he is blocked by James' sword.

"Nice job Wendy." James says as he struggles to hold off the attack.

Wendy gets off the ground as she is joined by the other Power Rangers. James jumps back and stands with his team and Sir Veil walks towards them.

"I won't need these guys anymore." Sir Veil says as he teleports the Trogs away from the area.

"Ready Rangers!" James shouts as he takes his stance while gripping his sword in his hand.

"Let's get rid of this guy." Justin says as he spins his lance.

"I can't have a day to be a bum, can I? I'm going to make you regret that." Mike says as he tightens the grip on his sickle.

"Ruining my day off was a bad move." Wendy says as she swings her flail.

"First monster from the new baddies and all you can do is cover the sun, kind of weak." Keri says as she pulls back her bow.

"You're going down." Phil says as he holds his axe at his side.

"I'm going to claim my prize!" Sir Veil says as he runs at James.

James turns to his right to avoid the large claw. Justin, Mike and Phil run at Sir Veil and slashes him with their weapons from three sides as James jumps away from the monster. Wendy jumps into the air and swings her flail right onto the monster's head. Sir Veil grows darker and darker in color as he starts to surround himself in a force field of pure dark energy which pushes the Rangers away from him.

"He created a force field around himself." Phil says as he tries to cut at the field of darkness.

"Out attacks aren't working." Mike says as he slashes one side of the field.

"We need a plan." Wendy says as she swings her flail at the field before it bounces off.

Keri takes aim with her Photon Bow and fires.The arrow causes a crack in the field of darkness around Sir Veil.

"Maybe it's based on our elements; we can use this to our advantage." Justin says as he sees the crack caused by Keri's Photon Arrow. Justin takes out his morpher and contacts Zordon about what he saw.

"Justin; this is a great idea. You just need to combine elements; that will be able to break through the barrier." Zordon informs.

"I already figured out the elements that we can use; over and out." Justin says as he shuts off his morpher. "James and Keri, I want you guys to combine weapons."

"We can do that?" James asks as he tries to cut through the barrier, leaving a crack.

"I'm downloading the abilities from the morphing grid; now Keri and James get ready!" Justin says as the ability downloads into the Rangers.

James hands Keri his sword as she uses it like an arrow and takes aim, charging the sword with light energy. James puts his hand on Keri's shoulder and they both say "Elemental Strike, Photon Pryo Blast!"

Keri fires the sword from her bow as it glows bright with the light and fire energy which breaks through the barrier and impales Sir Veil. The barrier disappears and Sir Veil crashes to the ground with an explosion.

"We did it!" Wendy says as she jumps on James, giving him a big hug.

"We really did." James says letting out a sigh. "Keri, your aim was perfect."

"Sweet moves." Mike says as he walks over to James and Wendy.

"Thanks for the power boost Justin." Keri says.

"It was just great timing.**" **Justin says as he gathers with the rest of the group.

"It's great being a team again, but I have to head home to make sure Marcus didn't destroy the house." Phil says.

He says his good-byes to his friends and teleports home.

"I have to get out of here too;I don't want my parents to worry about me. Later guys." Keri says as she teleports from the battlefield.

"I'm out." Mike says teleporting home.

"Well James and Wendy, I'm going to Zordon to talk about this new power. I'll see you guys around." Justin says as he teleports to the Command Core.

"It's just the two of us, I guess let's get back to enjoying our day off." James says as he and Wendy dimorph and continue to walk around the park to enjoy the nice weather.

In the castle of the Elemental Knights, The Blue Knight sits at the table looking over the battle in the viewing pool that lies at the center of the pentagram.

"I'm sorry Blue Knight for my soldier's failure." the Green Knight says as he stands over the Blue Knight.

"You didn't fail; it was just a test for the Rangers.I have already moved my piece on the chessboard, Red Ranger, now it's your move." the Blue Knight says as he intertwines his fingers together.


	5. Steps Toward Oblivion

**Chapter Five: Steps Toward Oblivion**

James sits in his room, while he works on his computer looking for a job. The last days of summer are upon the Ranger and he tries to take the next step in his life by finally making his own money.

"I need a job that can fit with me being a Ranger." James says with worry as he places his hand on forehead.

Every job he looks at is in retail places and part time, which would be great for him, but what if he is hurt or has to leave for Ranger business. He lets out a sigh as he gets up and dresses. Outside the room, Justin and Wendy sit in the living room watching television.

"Your boyfriend takes too long to get dressed." Justin says with annoyance as he gazes at his watch.

"I'll go get him." Wendy says as she gets up and walks up to James' room.

She opens the door and walks in while James is getting dressed. He turns to her with a grin on his face and says,

"You were hoping to get a peak at me huh?"

"Let's get going stud" She says with a chuckle in her voice.

James laughs as he finishes dressing and walks out of his room with Wendy.

"So what are we going to do today?" James asks with a smile on his face.

"Well it was your idea to go visit colleges." Justin says as he taps his foot and twirls his keys.

"I'm ready now, so let's hit the road." James says and then runs out of the apartment with his backpack as Wendy shakes her head and Justin lets out a sigh of disgust.

The three rangers piled into the car and drive out of the city. The Long Island Expressway is jammed with traffic as the Rangers sit in the car. The summer sun beats down on them constantly raising the heat in the car.

"Why does your college of choice have to be far away?" James asks as he flips through the radio stations.

"It's because they are going to give me a full ride. I don't want to pass this up to take a look at the campus since we are going to check out your college later." Justin says as he punches James in the shoulder for playing with the radio.

"Boys, calm down, you're both very pretty." Wendy says as she leans in between the front seats. "Why didn't your brother or anyone else join us?"

"Well Phil is spending time with Keri today since she is off from work and my bro didn't want to waste the last days of summer thinking about school." James replies.

Wendy leans back, puts her hands behind her head, then says,

"It's a great day to be out; it would have been fun if all of us were together."

"We will always be together. Nothing will ever change that." James says firmly.

"Another summer is over and school is around the corner and then all of the sudden college will start, then what?" Wendy asks.

The atmosphere in the car fell at Wendy's question. Each one of them knows the idea that they will always be Power Rangers isn't real, but it's the new life that they know and have grown used to. The fact that their futures are around the corner and that they have to face them just dawns on them and they wonder would it be as Rangers or as normal people? The rest of the car ride is silent as Justin drives the rest of the way, stopping once or twice to stretch his legs as James and Wendy slept in the backseat together. Justin drives the rest of the way lost in his own thoughts as he sees that his life is going to be different. After a couple of hours, Justin finally pulls up to the campus. It is lush and beautiful, the campus is full of life and a sense of a new beginning seems to fill the area. Justin parks and honks his horn to wake his passengers up.

"We're here." Justin says, then opens his door and stands outside as Wendy and James jump and scramble in the back seat.

They gather themselves, get out of the car and look around.

"This place looks great." Wendy says as she brushes her hair

"So this is where you're going to spend the rest of your life." James says as he stretches and grabs his bag, "Let's take the free tour."

"By free tour, you mean you're going to wander the campus." Wendy says as she grabs her bag from the car.

Justin looks around and takes in the campus;

"Hey guys I'm going to head off to the admin office and start my college application. Please try not to ruin this campus for me."

He walks away and heads up a long hill towards the main part of the campus.

"He has no faith in us does he?" James says then shakes his head as Wendy grabs his hand and pulls him towards her.

"It's because he knows us and he does want to get into this school." Wendy says before she gives James a small kiss on the cheek.

Then the two of them start to walk around the campus. The summer wind blows as the couple walks up the steep hill that leads towards the main building. Once they arrive up there, they sit on a bench and watch as the students pass by.

"So is this what our college life is going to be like?" James asks as he leans his head back and looks toward the sky.

Wendy leans on James's shoulder,

"We'd be lucky if you got into a school" She says jokingly.

James lets out a growl,

"I'm being serious, I know we're probably going to end up in different schools and with us being rangers and all, I don't know just been thinking lately."

"You think too much and you need to relax sometimes. We will figure us out in baby steps and so even if we end up in different schools, it's not like we won't be together or anything." Wendy says and then shoves James as he cracked a smile.

Inside, Justin sits in a wooden chair waiting to be seen by an administrator. After a few more minutes, a young woman walked out of the office.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." She says then smiles. "Right this way Mr. Allen."

Justin gets up and follows the woman into the room.

"The head of the Physics department will be with you in a few moments." The girl says placing a cup of water in front of Justin as he waits.

"So you must be a student here." Justin says as the girl is about to leave the room.

"Yea I am. I help around the offices and do filing and stuff as part of work study. The only way to make money here on campus."

"What can you tell me about the campus?"

"Well the school is so massive, you can get lost the first couple of days that you're here. There is also a story that one of the buildings here is haunted."

Justin laughed and says,

"I think every campus has the one scary haunted building."

"Yea that's true, but our story is real. Years ago before the campus was built, a group of settlers buried a box under one of the buildings, Ever since then the building has been haunted by ghost of people that went crazy looking for that box."

Justin continues to laugh,

"There is no way that this is real."

"Believe what you want. They say tonight will be the night where the ghost will come looking for the box."

The door behind them opens as a large man walked in with a briefcase.

"Sorry I'm late, had a staff meeting right before this. Thank you Kristen for keeping Mr. Allen entertained."

"No problem Mr. Collins" Kristen says as she leaves the room, but not before she drops a scrap of paper on the floor.

Justin reaches down and picks it up. He uncrumples it as it reads,

"The Olympian building, night fall, be there"

The professor looks at Justin as he places the note in his pocket. "So Justin please tell me about yourself."

Outside James and Wendy sit around, waiting for Justin to come out of his meeting. Justin comes out of the meeting with piles of papers.

"Well if the paperwork all goes well I should be starting here next year." Justin says as James and Wendy jump off the bench. Wendy hugs him then James gives him a high five.

"Congrats Justin!" James says.

"Yep, the first steps towards life after high school." Justin says with a little sadness in his voice.

"Now that you're all set here, let's head to my campus." James says as he starts to walk away.

"Don't be rude" Wendy says as she grabs James's arm and pulls him. "Since we are here on a college campus, we should have fun."

"Well there is something I want to check out, but it's tonight at night fall." Justin says as he takes out the note. Justin tells them about what happened with the girl and the supposed haunted building.

"We're Power Rangers, not Ghostbusters." James says as he shakes his head.

"I think we should check it out, might as well since we are here." Wendy says as she shoves James a little.

"Then it's settled we're staying here on the campus. We have awhile 'til then so let's find a place to relax." Justin says as the three of them start to walk off towards the car

"I thought I was the leader here." James says under his voice as he follows behind Justin and crams his hands in his pockets

Back at home Phil is on the phone with Keri.

"Hey I'm really sorry, I have to cancel plans, I just got a call about a job. I need to check it out. Maybe we can see each other afterward?"

Keri sighs as she says,

"Yea sure, call me afterward. Talk to you later."

Keri hangs up her phone and places it into her pocket, trying to figure out what to do for the day. She walks out of her house and down the street, with her head down. Left to her own thoughts she starts to think about her time in the different dimension.

'I can't let that happen' she thinks as she continues to walk down the street.

The clouds gather as she walks down the street. Soon enough the rain starts to fall as she keeps her head, a deep depression sinking into the pit of her stomach as she walks.

'There is so much on my mind. I should talk to Zordon.' Keri thinks while all of the sudden she bumps into Mike as he was heading to the store.

"Hey Keri, aren't you suppose to be on a date with Phil today?" Mike says as he grabs his bag

"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't see you there." Keri says as she shakes her head.

"No, it's no problem."

"Sorry, no I was suppose to have a day with Phil, but he had a job interview."

Mike smiles,

"Hey since you're not busy, do you want to head to the mall, I just got to drop this stuff off at the apartment."

Keri smiles back,

"Yea sure, that would be fun"

Mike and Keri start to head back to the apartment as the rain to falls heavily. The two of them run in the rain and find a small outlet as they try to wait out the rain. The two of them pant as they lean against the doorway.

"Damn rain" Mike says as he dries his hands on his pants so he can keep his grip on the bags.

Keri leans out of the doorway as the rain continued on,

"It's not gonna let up"

"I guess we have to go through it." Mike says as he runs out into the rain and Keri follows quickly behind him.

As the rangers explore and use their time off, the Blue Knight sits at the round table and moves a chess piece on a board. The Knight gets up from the table and walks around the castle, checking in on the troops. Outside in the courtyard, the Pink Knight and Red Knight stand overlooking the darkness that surrounded their castle.

"Soon we will have a new world to call our own." The Red Knight says.

"I can almost feel it, but as long as your..." The Pink Knight says but is cut off as the Blue Knight walked in.

"Can you excuse yourself so I may have a moment with my brother?" The Blue Knight states as the Pink Knight bows her head and walks back into the castle

"How can I be of service my Lord?" The Red Knight asks.

"I need a solider to challenge the Rangers."

"I have already started a plan. I have Intel says that they aren't together." The Red Knight says as he bows his head

"The last battle we had with them, it didn't matter if they were together or not. I do not care for your plan. Send down one of your competent soldiers with some Trogs and get rid of the Rangers. Leave the Red one to me." The Blue Knight says and walks back into the castle.

"Yes, my Lord." The Red Knight says, bows his head again and lets out a low growl.

He pulls out his sword and strikes the banister leaving it embedded. He pulls his sword out, heads into the castle and down to the dungeon. The dungeon holds the worst criminals the Knights deem too dangerous in their world, before its destruction. The Red Knight walks to a man chained to the wall in tattered clothes.

"Lord Red, has Judgment day come?" The man asks and then laughs.

"No, but I will give you a chance to redeem yourself. There are new enemies to the Kingdom and I want them destroyed." The Red Knight says and waves his hand as a small electrical burst opens the chains.

The man falls to the floor,

"Thy will be done my master."

As the Knights prepare their plans, Mike and Keri sit at the apartment while the rain pours outside.

"So what are we going to do now?" Mike asks as he puts away the groceries he's carrying.

"I don't know what to do now, it's raining and do you really want to go to the mall in this?" Keri ask as she dries her hair.

"I'll see what movies we have." Mike says, then goes into his room and checks around for a movie to watch, mainly to kill time. "Hey are you a fan of scary movies?"

Keri looks around the apartment until she comes upon a photo album. She opens it and starts to look through it. In the album, there are photos of James and Mike as they grew up together and then she comes upon a picture of the rangers after she had joined them as they gathered at the park for a rare day off. She starts to well up inside, not just from the photo of her and her friends together, but this lack of memories she had before the last couple of months. A deep feeling of sadness and darkness grew inside her as she rubs her eyes. Mike walks into the room with a movie in his hand.

"Hey you didn't say anything so I grabbed an action movie instead." Mike says as he stares at Keri who turned away from him, trying to cover her tears. "Are you ok?"

"Yea, im fine." Keri chokes out as rubs her eyes again and sits on the couch. "Now throw that movie on"

Mike puts in the disc and sits on the couch. As Keri and Mike settle in to watch a movie, Phil finally leaves his interview.

'I hope this all goes well' Phil thinks as he walks.

He walks down the street as the rain falls. He soon stops at a vender to grab some food. As Phil grabs and pays for his food, he goes back to the lobby of the office and sits on a bench. He could hear people in the building complaining and shouting.

"What is going on with the lights" Phil murmurs as they start to flicker on and off. "Must just be a power surge because of the storm."

Phil continues to eat as his morpher starts to vibrate. He reaches in but as he got it out it stops vibrating.

'Ok that is strange' Phil thought before quickly running into the bathroom and contacts Zordon. "Zordon, is everything ok?"

"Phil, there was a disturbance with the Elemental flow in the morphing grid, please stay on guard. Alpha and I will monitor the situation."

"I'll head home now." Phil says and then teleports out of the bathroom and heads home.

While upstate James, Wendy and Justin make their way to the abandoned building.

"This place is creepy." Wendy says as she looks at the building.

"All we need is Fred and Daphne." James jokes as he holds Wendy's hand.

A voice comes from the distance,

"Hey over here!"

Out of the shadows, Kristen emerges and waves her hand with a smile on her face.

"So this is the girl from before?" James asks as he reaches his hand out "Hey, I'm James"

"I'm Wendy, nice to meet you." Wendy says.

The girl blows past Wendy and shakes hands with James.

"It's nice to meet you"

Wendy glares at the girl as she leads them into the building. The building is old and falling apart, most of the room is covered in dust and cobwebs. The room is filled with the smell of mildew and decay. As they make their way deeper into the building, there are random sounds that creep in.

"We can always split up" Kristen says as she runs up and grabs James's arm and runs with him into the dark hallway.

Justin turns to Wendy as she glares down the hallway.

"I really wanna break the Ranger code right now" Wendy says through grit teeth.

"Let's go this way; I'm pretty sure James can handle himself with her." Justin turns and walks up the staircase.

Wendy follows behind Justin with a scowl on her face. As James and Kristen walked down the hallway, she held onto James, which started to make him uncomfortable.

"Yea that girl back there is my girlfriend" James says as he pulls away from her.

"Well I'm sorry, I was just scared." Kristen says as she smiles.

"It's ok to be scared." James says as he tries to walk ahead of Kristen.

As the pair makes their way exploring different rooms, they come upon a room that has a glass case with a box that is glowing.

"See this place is haunted" Kristen says as she stares at the box.

"Ok you maybe right." James says as he walks closer to the box.

As he walked towards the box, he feels a kick in the stomach and a punch in the face, but couldn't see the target.

"James, are you ok?" Kristen asks with worry.

James falls over as he clenches his stomach,

"This ghost can fight"

Down the hall Justin and Wendy continue to walk. The hallway gets dark as a table suddenly falls over. They turned around, spooked from the sound.

"Ok, that's not evidence. It could be the wind or just a rotted table leg." Justin says as he continues down the hall as Wendy follows behind him.

As the two of them makes their way down the hall, the lights start to flicker on and off.

"See that is evidence right there." Wendy says as she points towards the flickering lights.

"Just can be faulty wiring." Justin says.

Suddenly a scream rings out from down the hall as Justin and Wendy run towards the sound. When they arrive at the site they see James against the wall as Kristen is floating in the air.

"What the hell is going on?" Wendy asks.

"The Ghost" James says wearily. "Watch out"

The box continues to glow as Kristen falls to the ground as Justin and Wendy look around the room. A table lifts up and launches at them as well as a lamp. Justin ducks as Wendy jumps.

"Ok do you believe now?" Wendy asks as she rushes over and helps Kristen to her feet.

"I don't even know what's going on" Justin says as he carries James out of the room. "Kristen, go run down and get some help."

The girl nods as she runs out of the abandoned building. James stands to his feet as Justin helps him up. "James, are you ok?"

"I don't think a ghost can hit someone" James says as he holds his stomach.

A vibration starts to come from the morpher as all three of the rangers pull them out as it says, "Elemental detected"

"A new feature huh?" Wendy asks.

"Yea, Zordon, Alpha and I downloaded them last night. We can detect Elemental powers, in case the Knights are hiding among us." Justin says.

"Great idea" James says, "I guess we are dealing with one of the Knight's people."

"We know how to deal with this" Wendy says as she grips her morpher

"Let's do it" Justin says holding his morpher ready.

"Elemental Energize!" All three rangers exclaim as they changed into their uniforms.

"So what the Lord said was true, there are more elementals out there." A mysterious voice says as a couch was thrown at the rangers.

They deftly avoid the couch as it crashes through a wall.

"Show yourself!" James shouts as he holds out his hand and forms the Pyro Sword.

"Like that is going to help" The voice says as James feels a slash down his back from an unseen sword.

"James!" Wendy yells as she feels a slash across her arm.

"We need some way to see him." James grunts as he looks around.

"I got it, Aero Lance!" Justin says as he holds out his hand and the lance forms in it. He starts to twirl the lance in front of him creating a small tornado, kicking up the dust in the old building. After a few seconds a figure stood before them covered in dust.

"Damn Rangers." The figure grumbles.

He quickly moves at super speed to attack the Rangers with sparks of electricity coming from his fist. He runs through the three Rangers as he says,

"I have other places to be"

The figure disappears as the rangers stand with their weapons, filled with confusion.

"Let's get to the Command Core and see what's going on." James says as he and the other Rangers teleport out of the building.

Meanwhile in Manhattan, Mike and Keri finish their movie.

"It was pretty good." Keri says as she stands up and stretches. "Oh and the rain stopped."

"What are you talking about, that movie was great." Mike says and then the morpher in his pocket started to go off. Mike pulls out the morpher as Zordon appears on the screen. "What's going on?"

"There are Trogs in the area; I need you and Keri to deal with it. Phil is already there. I'll send reinforcements momentary." Zordon says as the communication cut out and the building's lights start to flicker. The two rangers run outside to see the streets filled with Trogs causing mayhem. Keri pulls out her morpher as mike grabs his,

"Elemental Energize!"

The two rangers start to fight off the Trogs. Mike jump kicks one as Keri summons her Photon Bow and takes aim.

"Fire!" She says as she fires three arrows into three different Trogs who fall to the ground and explode.

Keri and Mike finally reach Phil as they see Trogs explode around him as he slashes them with his Stone Axe.

"Hey nice for the two of you to join me" Phil says as he flips one of the Trogs over his shoulder and cuts it half.

"We couldn't let you have all the fun" Mike says as he summons his Sickle and takes a swing, cleaving five of the Trogs in one slash.

In a flash of lightning, a group of Trogs are blasted away as a figure walked through the dust. The rangers ready themselves for an attack but as the dust settled, there is no one there. The three rangers look around,

"Where did he go?" Mike asks as he looks around, a breeze of wind blows past him and he feels a slash on the side. Keri and Phil turn towards Mike as Phil is feels a slash across his back. He lets out a scream as he bends backward from the attack. Keri takes aim and looks around as she sees dust kicking up faster, heading towards her,

"Photon Fire!" Keri yells as she releases her arrows and hit the invisible figure.

The figure screams as blood comes from the wound,

"Show yourself!" Keri says as she takes aim again while Mike and Phil regain composure.

The figure starts to appear before them, covered in tattered clothes. His fist crackle with an electrical charge. He smiles a grisly smile as he cracks his neck sideways.

"I should give you the name of the man that will kill you" He says as he quickly starts to disappear and runs towards the rangers at super speed.

Trogs that are still in the area are knocked away from the uncontrollable run of the creature as he charges at them. The Rangers prepared for the onslaught until three lights come down as James, Justin and Wendy join Mike, Keri and Phil creating a force field around them in fire, wind and metallic fragments.

"You guys finally got here" Mike says.

"Yea, we just dealt with this guy" James says as their elemental shield dies down.

A voice is booms as the rangers gather in a circle to cover themselves in all directions.

"What is the deal with this guy?" Keri asks as she keeps aiming in her direction.

"Zordon says his name is Tlaloc" James says.

Keri whispers his name,

"Tlaloc"

"Yea, his power is super speed. He vibrates himself so fast that it can cause invisibility. His proximity to electricity causes it to short out." Justin says.

"That explains the power shortage at the office building today" Phil says.

"And our ghost, before" Wendy says.

"Ghost?" Mike asks as he looks in his direction.

"Long story bro, now lets get this guy" James says as he breaks away from the group and slashes in his direction, in an attempt to attack the invisible foe.

"So sloppy Ranger" Tlaloc says as he grabd James and throws him into a car.

Keri fires her arrow in his direction and manages to just graze him causing him a small cut. Tlaloc starts to bleed as Mike breaks away from the group and slashes the sky as a beam of black energy came from the blade, but to no avail.

"Damn" Mike grumbles as another slash strikes mike across the stomach and he doubles over in pain.

"We need away to uncover him." Phil says as he gets ready for an attack.

"You can't beat someone you can't see." Tlaloc says as he attacks Wendy with a kick to the chest that puts her through a car.

Phil turns to Wendy as the invisible creature takes advantage of his distraction and strikes. Justin and Keri stand back to back trying to cover themselves, but that is no help as a car is picked up. Keri fires with her arrow towards the floating car, but the car is already in the air as Justin jumps out of the way. The car gets closer to Keri as James pushes her out of the way.

"I had the shot!" Keri says.

"Not at the risk of getting hurt." James says as the other rangers gather together.

James looks around and then sees floating red marks in the air, the marks that was caused by Keri's Photon arrows.

"Guys, look ahead of us." James says as the rangers all look in the same direction as they see the floating red marks.

"We need a means to beat this guy." Phil says.

"I got an idea, let's bring them together." James says.

"I got this." Justin says as he pulls out his morpher. "We need the weapon upgrades, Zordon."

Each Ranger pull out their morphers as the new power downloads into them and they started to glow.

"Surrender or Die Rangers" Tlaloc says as he walks towards the rangers

"I don't go down without a fight" Mike says as he grasps his weapon tightly.

Keri takes aim as she pulls back her arrows and says,

"There is no way we will ever surrender."

"We're going to send you back to where you belong" Phil says as he lays his Axe on his shoulder

"You're not going to win" Justin says as he cracks his neck.

"You don't know who you're messing with" Wendy says as she swings her Flail.

James points his sword at Tlaloc,

"Good bye"

"You can't even see me!" Tlaloc yells.

"Yea we can thanks to the Yellow Ranger" James says.

Tlaloc looks down and sees the wounds on his body that aren't invisible,

"WHAT!?" He exclaims.

The weapons in each ranger's hands start to glow.

"Let's use our new power, ELEMENTAL ASSUALT!" James yells.

Each ranger run towards the creature, first the arrows fires from Keri's weapon, pinning him in place, next Mike and Phil run up and slash him in an X formation and behind them is Justin who throws his lance through the creature as Wendy attacks the creature with her fail and finally James jumps into the air and slashes the creature down the middle with his flaming sword.

"Well done Rangers, no one could have bested me like that except the Knights, no wonder they see you as a threat." Tlaloc says as he starts to spark while the Rangers turn around and start to walk away. He hits the ground and explodes. The rangers power down and start to gather themselves.

"Alright we did it." Wendy says as she jumps up and down

"That was so much harder than I thought" Mike says as he tries to catch his breath

"Sorry to cut this victory short, but we have to get back to the school before people think we are missing." Justin says.

"We'll see you guys tomorrow when school starts in the morning." James says as he waves goodbye to Keri, Mike and Justin

Wendy waves goodbye as she and James teleport with Justin.

"Later guys" Mike says as he teleports back home.

"Do you want to start this date?" Phil asks.

"Yea, I thought you never would ask. Talk to you later guys." Keri says as her and Phil hold hands and teleport back to Keri's place.

While up in space in the different dimension, the Blue Knight sits and watches the end of the fight over and over again.

"I can't believe that my brother took the risk and unleashed Tlaloc.".

Outside on the balcony the Red Knight stands as he feels the sensation of another come by,

"So you're ok my dear."

Out of the shadows, Kristen walks out holding the glowing box from before.

"Yea I needed the rangers to activate the box." Kristen says grabbing the hilt of a sword as she starts to morph into her Pink Knight armor.

"Now with this box we have the tools to defeat both the Rangers and the other Knights and take over."

"No, we still have to bide our time since I don't quite know what powers are locked in this box." The Red Knight says as he holds the box with an odd symbol on it and he starts to laugh.


	6. This Is Halloween

**Chapter 6: This is Halloween**

It is November 1st 12:01 am, as the six elemental rangers stumble into the James and Michael's home. The rangers look exhausted as they barely make it into the living room to try and find some form of rest.

"This has to be the terrifying of Halloween ever." James says as he slumps over onto the couch  
>"Tell me about it; and to think it started out so normal this morning." Justin says as he sits on a chair and he ran his fingers through his hair…<p>

Flashback: 16 hours earlier…

The day started off like any other with the team heading into school for another rousing day of education. The only difference between any other day and today was that everyone was in costume because it was the only time of year they were allowed to wear costumes at school; it was Halloween. James was dressed as Superman, Phil was dressed as Green Lantern and Wendy was Wonder Woman from the new 52 Justice League. While Justin was dressed as Akuma from Street Fighter, Keri was a Star Sapphire and Michael was Kamen Rider Eternal. When they arrived at the school, they noticed that they were, in fact, the only ones not dressed as monsters. As it turns out there was a massive email informing everyone in the school to come dressed as monsters this year, instead of anything else. This email, it seemed, failed to reach any of the rangers.

"I wonder why we didn't get the email." Keri said  
>"Who cares, I wouldn't listen to that email anyway." Michael said taking off his helmet "I look so much cooler this way."<br>"Whatever helps you sleep at night Mike." Phil said while he adjusted his ring.  
>"But doesn't it seem weird that someone would email to everyone but us?" James asked.<br>"I agree something doesn't feel exactly right." Wendy replied.

The six heroes walked into class as usual and took their seats waiting for the class to begin. Everything seemed fine until the suddenly a peculiar announcement was made.

"Attention students, I need all the seniors to report to the gymnasium immediately for an important presentation."

The teacher looked at the speaker and shrugged. She dismissed all the seniors in her class and the other classes followed suit. It took about twenty minutes to round up all the students, but every single senior was in the gym gazing at something. In the center of the gym, an odd machine with very technical systems and satellite antennae stands in contrast to the gym equipment.

"What the hell is that?" A student asked.  
>"It looks like a gas chamber." Another student said<p>

Just then a man with black hair in a black tuxedo, walked up to stand next to the machine. He grabbed the microphone and began to speak.

"Hello Seniors, my name is Sam Hain and I would like to talk to you about my favorite holiday, Halloween." Sam said "And how you all we help make this a Halloween that will never end."

Suddenly there was a crack of thunder was heard outside, which caused the students to jump.

"Guys, this is really weird." Justin said. "That machine looks far more advanced than some Halloween parlor trick."

"Yeah let's get to the Command Core." Phil said.

"There are too many people here." Keri whispered.

"Yeah, let's duck out of here." Mike said.

The rangers quickly looked around to assure that they would not be seen or missed and stealthily left the gym. As they left they heard evil crackling throughout the halls of the school. They hit their communicators and started to feel their bodies teleport. Suddenly there was this flash of white light that blinded the heroes, and then there was silence. 

"What happened?" Wendy asked.

"Something interfered with the teleportation sequence." Justin said as fiddled with his morpher.  
>"I don't like this." James said. "What could be so powerful to interfere with our communication and teleportation technology?"<p>

"Well…" Justin thought aloud.  
>"Well since we can't get to the Command Core, let's get back to the gym." Michael said as he noticed that he is no longer carrying his helmet. "Now here is a better question, wasn't my helmet off a second ago?"<br>"Yea and my ring won't come off." Phil replied as his ring would not budge.  
>"What the hell is going on?" Keri questioned as she tried to remove her ring.<p>

Just then the ranger's communicators went off.

"Rangers, are you alright?" Alpha asked.

"Alpha!" The group said.

"Alpha, what is going on?" James asked.

"The man who is in your gymnasium is no man at all." Zordon said. "The Knights have released a terribly evil creature known as Samhain, the spirit of Halloween."  
>"So, we're dealing with a ghost that has a love for costumes." Mike said.<p>

"It is much more than that, the monster that you are facing has ancient power the likes of which have not been seen in over a thousand years." Zordon explained.  
>"That's all well and good, but that doesn't explain what happened to us." Michael replied. "Why we can't take off our costumes?"<br>"I was getting to that, that machine in the gym was built for one thing." Zordon responded. "It was designed to transform whatever a person is wearing into the very thing it represents."  
>"So that's why someone wanted everyone to dress as a monster, so Samhain would have an army of monsters and demons at his command." Wendy said with realization.<br>"Exactly, so we just destroy the machine and everything goes back to normal." Phil said.  
>"But some of the kids were dressed as a zombie, which means we have to contain the virus before it spreads." Justin said.<br>"Great more work." Michael said as he reached for the eternal memory on his belt.  
>"Mick what are you doing?" James asked.<br>"If this suit is anything like the one in the show I should be able to transform back to normal if I remove the memory." Michael said as he remove the Eternal Memory.

Suddenly the wind swirled around Michael as the armor shattered, but underneath the armor wasn't the normal outfit he wore this morning. It was a black jumpsuit with red lining and a "NEVER" Logo on the chest and back. And Michael's hair gained blue streaks in it.

"What the hell Alpha?!" Michael yelled "I thought I would be normal under the armor."  
>"You didn't let Zordon finish explaining everything, I scanned you guys right after the machine went off." Alpha said<br>"And?" James asked  
>"Since you weren't directly in the room, you guys only got a partial dose of the blast." Alpha explained. "Therefore you were given the powers of your costumes however you have the main part of your personality and physical traits. I am assuming there might be some side effects that we have yet to realize."<br>"So basically I fused with Kamen Rider Eternal?" Michael asked "Powers and all?"  
>"Essentially yes, but there are small traits like certain desires or physical traits that will emerge from the fictional character you are portraying; the same goes for all of you." Alpha said.<br>"Well that would explain my urge to hunt down strong opponents and crush them." Justin said cracking his knuckles.  
>"Yes and another downside is that the machine is causing total inference with the morphing grid." Alpha said.<br>"This means we can't even morph…" James said as his eyes began to glow red "That's just freaking great."

"Not only morphing, we are locked out of everything that morphing grid provides, powers, weapons, everything."

"Alright, so what's the plan?" Wendy asked.  
>"So the first thing we do is lock down the school to make sure the monsters in the gym don't escape. Then we hide the remaining human students so they can't be turned." Justin said<br>"Then we smash the machine." Phil finished.  
>"And destroy Samhain." Michael said spinning his newly acquired combat knife "Seems simple enough, let drag this bastard to hell."<p>

Just then all hell broke loose as the gym doors flew open; the monsters attacked any normal person in sight, automatically turning them into a monster like the one who attacked them. James used his new super speed to lock all the school's exits and entrances and Wendy was protecting any strugglers in the halls during the first wave. The rangers figured as long as no one alerted the students nothing could go wrong. But luck wasn't on their side, because one of the packs of werewolves made into the principal's office and attacked everyone there, causing the vice principal to make an announcement alerting the entire school. This caused students to run out into the halls causing the monster population levels to rise.

"This isn't working, there are too many of them." Phil said creating a green wall.

"Yeah, every time we try and prevent more monsters from being created they get passed us and the population increases exponentially." Keri said.  
>"What are we going to do?" Wendy asked.<p>

"What if we split up?" Justin asked as his mind formulated a plan.

"Three teams?" James asked coming up with a similar plan.  
>"Mike and I will be the strike force keeping the monster population at bay." Justin said. "Especially seeing as how we seemingly have, less than perfect moral quandaries at the moment."<p>

"Phil, Keri, you will stand guard at the main entrance." James said. "Do not let anything through! You are the last line of defense for the rest of the world."

"Got it!" Phil and Keri said.

"And the heroes will play safety patrol and ensure everyone is okay I'm sure." Mike said mockingly.

"Shut the hell up bro." James said.

"Make me little man." Mike said.  
>"Oh I…" James began.<br>"Enough already!" Phil said making a barrier between them.  
>"Yeah, we can't let these personalities distract us from saving the world." Wendy said.<p>

"Let's do this." Keri said.

Keri and Phil flew around the school locking down every entrance. They try and herd monsters back toward the gym using various different types of weapons they can imagine. They prove to be rather successful as the monsters try to push their way through the exit. The two lanterned heroes combined their might and pushed them back. In the meantime, James and Wendy went around ensuring that normal humans were placed in rooms which were battened down. Back with Michael and Justin, they were surrounded by vampires, demons and various other monsters. Both had a sadistic smirk on their mouth as they fought through the beasts.

"Remember we can't kill any of them." Justin said as he backhanded a sparkly vampire.  
>"Yeah, yeah, but I can beat the unliving hell out of this freaks." Michael said as he smashed the handle of his combat knife into the temple of a Frankenstein monster.<br>"Duck!" Someone yelled.

Michael and Justin ducked as a ice cold wind shot past them freezing several monsters allowing our heroes to jump back before they are swarmed by zombies. Michael turned around saw his brother floating in place. And behind James was Wendy, Keri and Phil and they were also floating mid-air.

"Thanks bro for the cover." Michael said.  
>"No problem, we finished early and grabbed Phil and Keri so we can make a push towards the gym and to the machine." James said.<br>"Sweet but first let me suit up." Michael said as he grabbed his Eternal Memory.  
>"Really Mike…Really." Phil said.<br>"Just because you guys can't morph doesn't mean I can't." Michael said as he pressed the button on the memory.  
>"Eternal" the Gaia memory said as Michael placed it inside the lost driver.<p>

Michael transformed back into Kamen Rider Eternal and he struck a pose. He pointed towards the monsters causing James to face palm himself in embarrassment.

"I'll drag you to hell." Mike said.  
>"Only you, Mick only you." James said.<br>"Go to hell." Michael said.  
>"Less talking more crushing under our heels." Justin said as dark purple energy began to gather in his hands.<br>"Yeah, what he said." Michael said placing the Eternal memory inside the combat knife aka the Eternal Edge.

Justin fired a Hadoken into the crowd at half strength so not to kill the monsterified students. Then Michael jumped into the center of the monsters as green energy gathered to the Eternal Edge.

"Eternal Maximum Drive." The Knife said  
>"Bloody hell wave!" Michael called out sending out a shockwave out of the knife knocking down the monsters.<br>"Phil Keri move it!" Michael said as he was getting swarmed by the creatures.

Phil and Keri made a plow made out of Green and Pink Energy shoving the monsters away as James helped his brother up after he punched his way through the Halloween made beasts. Wendy wrapped one of demons in her lasso of truth and began to spin in a circle knocking over the monsters. The empowered heroes finally forced their way through crowd to reveal the transformed Samhain. He had a pumpkin for a head and his entire body was covered in a black cloak. He was sitting on a throne of skulls and swirling a brandy glass full of some kind of red liquid.

"Rangers, if I can call you that, how did you like my little pets?" Samhain said as he took a drink.  
>"They were rather annoying so we had to put them down." Michael said as he crossed his arms.<br>"Before we get onto the very violent battle which will lead to your obvious destruction, I have to ask about the throne of skulls." James said.  
>"Yea it seems so very, what's the word for it?" Wendy asked.<br>"Cliché dear" James said with a smirk knowing that them ignoring Samhain is pissing him off.  
>"Yea that's it very cliché." Wendy agreed.<br>"And seriously swirling a blood colored liquor is supposed to scare us, please." Phil said.  
>"I've seen scarier things in kid's movies." Keri answered.<br>"You will stop mocking me or else!" Samhain ordered.  
>"Or else what? Great Pumpkin, you won't give presents." Michael said.<br>"Kill them!" Samhain ordered as hordes of demons attacked them.  
>"Way to go smart mouth." James said as he punched a goblin in the stomach.<br>"Whatever you were thinking the same." Michael said as he was slashing a beast in the chest.

Justin tells them that they need to give James an opening to smash the machine since he is the physically the strongest. The remaining rangers agree and made the monsters focus their attentions on them instead of James. Allowing James to run up to Samhain and punch him in the jaw sending him flying. Then he jumped into the air and "Superman" punched the machine sending out a shockwave. Thus releasing everyone from their costumed forms and turning all the bitten humans back to normal and turning everyone else back to normal. The rangers walked up to the destroyed machine and looked at the damages.

"That ends that." Justin said. "Nice punch James, by the way."  
>"Thanks I personally enjoyed doing that." James said.<br>"I'm glad to me again." Michael said.  
>"I pity the world." Phil said earning a punch to the arm from Michael.<br>"This isn't over just yet, we have to finish Samhain." James said.  
>"Rangers! Good news the inference is gone, you can morph again." Alpha said.<br>"Sweet Let's do this guys." James said as everyone else pulled out their morphers.  
>"Elemental Energize!" The Rangers called out.<p>

Samhain flew back into the room glaring at the rangers; he cursed them for destroying his army of darkness. The rangers morphed into their ranger forms as Samhain summoned up bunch of trogs and sent them after them. The Rangers summoned up their weapons and charged the trogs as they smashed and slashed their way to Samhain

"I'm glad you survived my monsters and the trogs, I personally wanted to crush you." Samhain roared as he begin to fling black fire balls at them  
>"Hey Red can't you do anything about this fireballs." The black ranger said as he dodged a giant fireball.<br>"Yea I got an idea." The red ranger said as his sword began to glow red.

The Pryo sword began to draw all the fire towards the red ranger and formed a red and black fire tornado. Samhain began to slowly back up from the attack as he noticed that the other rangers were gathering elemental energy to the individual weapons.

"Lets end this!" Fire Ranger said "Eat this Never-ending Firestorm!"  
>"Elemental blast!" The other Rangers called out.<p>

The red ranger's tornado engulfed the spirit of Halloween, burning every inch of his body, as the other energy waves sliced through him like a hot knifes through butter. After a few seconds he crashed to the ground and then he exploded. The rangers began to walk away from the battle site, but meanwhile outside the school, the Elemental Knights looked onto the destroyed Samhain with disgust.

"How pitifully weak the suppose spirit of Halloween is." The Blue knight said.  
>"Lets see how weak he is after we make him jumbo sized." The Red Knight said.<br>"Perfect idea." The Pink Knight said.

The Elemental knights combined their negative energy and shot it at body of Samhain causing the defeated monster to revive and grow to massive size. The rangers looked up to see the newly healed enemy had grown bigger than the school.

"Crap now what?" The black Ranger asked.  
>"Don't worry rangers I sent a new setting to your morphers." Alpha said.<br>"What is it?" Yellow ranger asked.  
>"It allows you to summon your Zords." Alpha said with glee.<br>"About time" The green ranger said.

The rangers pulled out their morphers to the main screen and rotated the pad to the right revealing a lightning bolt. The rangers pushed the center button causing a rip in their dimension, allowing six mechanical beasts to appear: a Red Dragon, a Blue Garuda, a Green Minotaur, a Pink Unicorn, a Yellow Griffin and finally a Black Tortoise.

"Man this zords look cooler than our last ones." The Green ranger said.  
>"That's fine and all, one question why the hell am I the turtle, nature's "d" student." The Black ranger questioned.<br>"Deal with it." The red ranger said.

The Rangers jumped into their Zords and drove them towards Samhain, whom at this point began to attack the city.

"Ok rangers lets put them together." The Red Ranger said

The green Minotaur raises itself on its hind legs, folding its head and front legs forward until it resembles a larger left leg while the yellow Unicorn zord folds its legs into itself until it resembles a larger right leg. The blue Garuda's feet lock into the top of the Minotaur as it compresses down and its wings fold over the front making a chest plate. The pink Monkey pulls its arms and legs into its body as its head folds back revealing a giant hand with the head being a hand guard. Using it's tail, it links into the Garuda's right side as the right arm. The black Turtle's shell pulls forward until it becomes a shield revealing a giant hand holding onto it as the rest of its body elongates until it is of equal length as the Monkey Zord and docks to the left side of the Garuda Zord. The Dragon coils in itself until a warrior's head is revealed as it's tail disengaged and forms a lance that goes into the megazord's hand. The head docks to the top of the Garuda Zord completing the Elemental Megazord transformation sequence. The rangers all appear in together in the main cockpit surrounded by high tech, hologram computer technology.

"Elemental Megazord is online." The Red Ranger said.  
>"Sweet it has cup holders." The Black Ranger said.<br>"Jumbo Size" The Green Ranger added.  
>"Let's finish this." The Red Ranger said.<p>

The Elemental Megazord charges towards Samhain with the lance pointed at him, Samhain dodged it and tried to punch the Zord in the head. But he was blocked by the Turtle shield, and backhanded by same hand. The Megazord knee'd the spirit of Halloween in the stomach and kicked him in the face sending him flying into several buildings. Samhain stood back up and fired a black stream of fire, but that was blocked as the Zord punched the ground with the left arm summoning up a wall of metal to protect them.

"Why won't you fall?!" Samhain ordered.  
>"Because as long as evil exists rangers will never fall!" The Red Ranger said as the Dragon Lance began to charge various elemental energy.<br>"What's going on?!" Samhain asked.  
>"Your final judgment" The red ranger said.<br>"Elemental Judgment!" The Rangers call out.

The Megazord dashes forward at high speed piercing Samhain's chest, then they flew up into the sky and fired a blast pointblank inside him launching the former spirit of Halloween into the sun; finally destroying the demonic beast of Halloween once and for all.

End Flashback…

"Personally I'm glad that Halloween is over." Keri said  
>"Yea me too, but Samhain did do one thing that was good." Wendy said.<br>"Which is?" Keri asked.  
>"He gave a chance to be superheroes." Wendy explained.<br>"Yea I'm going to miss being Kamen Rider Eternal and being the most powerful out of the group." Michael said taking a sip of a soda.  
>"Wait you the most powerful, BS bro I was Super-freakin-man. I was the most powerful." James said.<br>"I was an immortal, with borderline magic weapons that makes me the strongest." Michael argued.  
>"Hell no I was the strongest I could make things out sheer will power." Phil argued.<br>"Please take that away and you would be soft and squishy." Michael said.  
>"The same can be said about you rider boy." James said.<br>"Now lets face facts, Akuma can't be beaten so by that logic I was the most powerful." Justin proposed. "But one thing that still bothers me, why did we not get sent the email? I mean if we were dressed up in monster costumes, there would've been no one to protect Earth."

"Yeah that's true." Mike said.  
>"Perhaps it would've been too easy of a win." Phil said.<p>

"What do you mean?" James asked.

"Well, the Knights want to destroy us but they want to do it using their overwhelming power." Phil explained. "If we had been turned to monsters, it wouldn't have proved that they were better than us, just that they can use cheap shots."  
>"That is pretty true." Wendy said.<p>

And the argument continued throughout the night, but meanwhile in space.

"Next time we fight the rangers, they will fall." The Blue knight said while looking at a large computer screen that said

"Crazy idea, everyone has to come dressed a monster from any horror movie."

"Next time I will finish things personally." The Blue Knight.


	7. Leading A Normal Life

**Chapter 7: Leading a Normal Life**

"I had a good time tonight." Keri says as she and Phil walk down the block towards her apartment.

"So did I." Phil responds as the street lights illuminate their path.

Keri interlocks her hands behind her back as she walks while Phil stuffs his hands in his pockets nervously.

"I love this time of year; fresh breeze, clear skies." Keri says taking a breath.

"Yea, not too hot not too cold. Simply perfect." Phil replies smiling at Keri who smiles back before turning away blushing.

"Cornball." Keri says giving Phil a light shove.

"But you like that stuff, so what does that make you?" Phil says with a smirk.

"A bigger cornball." Keri answers which makes both teens laugh as they arrive at the steps to Keri's apartment.

They both stop and turn to each other.

"Thanks for taking me out. I feel like a normal girl, even if it is for one night." Keri says.

"Funny, cause when I'm with you I feel like I'm the luckiest guy in the world."

"Your cheese is showing again Phil." Keri says smiling as she kisses Phil on the cheek. "But thank you."

Keri pulls away and is about to turn to the front door when Phil lightly grabs Keri's hand in his, causing her to stop.

"Wait Keri…"

Keri turns to Phil who begins to look flustered. Keri takes a step toward Phil as they hold hands.

"I don't know how…to say this exactly but this is our sixth date. And…" Phil struggles to say. "And I feel there's something between us that I want to pursue further."

Keri's eyes look into Phil's before dropping down as she knows what he's about to say.

"I want us to be exclusive. Boyfriend, girlfriend like James and Wendy."

"Phil….I can't." Keri begins to say. "There's just so much-."

Phil takes a step closer to Keri until their faces are only a couple of inches from each other.

"I know your afraid, honestly I am too. I've never felt this way about anyone before. And whatever is bothering you, whatever questions you have I want to be there with you to find the answers."

Phil's words calm Keri down as Phil moves in for a kiss as he goes in 90% waiting for Keri to return the other 10. Keri hesitates for a second and then closes her eyes as she moves in.

"Uhum!" a voice coughs which causes both teens to open their eyes and quickly turn to see an adult man in his mid 40s standing in the doorway.

"Dad!" Keri says embarrassed.

"Mr. Lovato!"

"Hello Phillip. Nice seeing you again." Keri's father says sarcastically.

"Likewise…" Phil responds awkwardly.

"Dad what are you doing down here?" Keri asks.

"Your mother asked me to throw out the garbage." Mr. Lovato says as he grabs the black garbage bag behind him and tosses it over the edge of the stoop where the garbage is held.

Keri's dad then leans back against the door as he looks at the two teens.

"Uhh dad?" Keri says.

"Yes?"

"Can you leave?!" Keri says becoming frustrated.

"Oh oh right. I'll be heading back upstairs then." Mr. Lovato says as he opens the door and closes it behind him.

"Sorry about that." Keri says turning back to Phil.

"It's alright, he's just being a dad." Phil responds.

"Yea, a little too overprotective of me." Keri says, "Especially recently."

Keri comes out of her thoughts as she sees Phil leaning in for another try at a kiss. But Keri raises her index finger and places it on Phil's puckered lips. The action causes Phil to open his eyes with confusion.

"Sorry Phil, but even though my dad said he left I know he's still behind the door." Keri says.

Phil leans back with disappointment. "Oh…"

Keri smirks as she finds Phil's disappointed look cute. "Listen, I'm going to go in but I'll leave you with this."

Phil looks at Keri waiting for what she has to say.

"Let's meet up after school is done. I promise we can discuss 'us' again."

Keri pecks Phil on the cheek and turns for the door. Once she reaches her door she opens it a crack and turns back to see Phil smiling waiting for her to enter her apartment. She smiles when she drops her head and enters the apartment, closing it behind her. Seeing the door close, Phil turns away and begins his walk back to his home.

"Ugh, Keri Keri what are you going to do?" Keri says to herself as her forehead is pressed up against the door.

"Since when did start talking to yourself?" A voice says which causes Keri to prop up and turn to see her father reading through the mail.

"Jeez dad, even when I asked you to leave you're still here eavesdropping on me."

"Excuse me? I'm picking up the mail." Keri's dad says.

"Dad, I picked up the mail and left it on the table before I went out." Keri states as she walks passed her father who smirks.

"I only want what's best for you dear."

"Yea yea I know. You're just being a dad."

Keri climbs up the stairs to her family's apartment as her dad is not too far behind. The door opens as Keri's mom is sitting at the table on the phone.

"Oh wait Cindy, let me call you back." Keri's mom says to the woman on the phone as she hangs up and looks at her daughter. "Soooo, how did it go?"

"It was good." Keri says non-chalant.

"Oh come now, give me the details."

"Sorry mom but I'm not in the mood right now. I just need some rest." Keri says as she walks towards her room when her father walks in the apartment.

"Ok sweetie, have a good night." Keri's mom says when she hears her door close which immediately causes her to stare down her husband.

"….What?" Keri's dad asks seeing his wife's face.

"You know what, what did you do?"

"Absolutely nothing, I went downstairs to throw out the garbage and that's it."

"And you just happened to walk in on her and Phil, right?"

Keri's father doesn't respond and instead grabs a bottled water from the fridge.

"Mark, you know we're trying to give Keri a normal life. We've finally settled down in this city and she's been able to make some good friends." Keri's mom says, "So why not just let her breathe a little?"

Keri's door opens a crack as she peers into the living room.

"You know why Laura, we can't risk it." Keri's father explains, "We've spent all these years protecting her, so there's no reason to stop now."

"But she can't be a normal girl with you breathing down her neck all the time. She's grown up, sooner or later she'll leave our house and then what?" Keri's mother retorts which silences her husband.

Keri sighs as she closes her door and lies on her bed before falling asleep.

Elsewhere…

The evil Green Knight Ranger is sitting in his private quarters as he looks into a small crystal ball. Inside the mystical globe is the previous fights the Rangers have had to endure against the Knights and their monsters. The Green Knight is observing their fighting styles so he can defeat them later. He sees the different rangers using their attacks when the Gold Ranger appears. She is seen fighting monsters as the images of her keep appearing on the globe. The same clips are played over and over when a yelling is heard.

"GREENY!" a woman's voice calls out.

The Green Knight looks up from the globe to see the Yellow Knight open the door to his chambers. He quickly puts the ball out of sight and stands to his feet.

"What is it?" He asks.

"Just wondering what you were doing."

"Preparing for our next battle with the Rangers."

"Yawn, that's boring."

"Excuse me?"

"You should come out with me. It's a beautiful day."

"You mean the dark, dank dimension we live in?" The Green Knight says sarcastically.

"No, I mean on Earth."

"Why would I do that? Would Blue even know?"

"Oh she doesn't have to know everything we do. And if she asks, just tell him it's a scouting mission." The Yellow Knight states.

A mental image of Keri appears in the Green Knight's mind as he considers the proposal.

"Alright, I'll go with. But we're going to need a new look."

Later that night…

Keri's eyes open as she lies in bed. She quickly gets up and races toward the bathroom. Her electronic clock shows it is 3 AM as a flush is heard. Keri opens the bathroom door and yawns.

"Man, cold weather always makes me have to go." Keri says as she heads toward her room when an illuminating green light emanates from her parents' room.

'What the?' Keri thinks as she creeps up to her parents' room.

Inside Mark and Laura's room, Mark is asleep as Laura is kneeled at the floor of her open closet. The green light emanates from a box that Laura has opened. She stares at a green stone that almost looks radioactive. Laura lays her fingers on it as she brushes them across the surface and then presses them against the top right corner where it is visibly dimmer than the rest of the stone.

"Honey? Ugh what are you doing up?" Mark asks as he rubs his eyes. He reaches for his glasses and places them on his face. "You know you shouldn't be opening that."

Mark quickly sits up as he turns to the door, afraid someone might walk in.

"I know dear, but I felt there was something wrong." Laura responds as she turned to her husband and then back to the stone.

"Is there?"

"I'm not sure. But look at it, the light is dimming."

Mark gets out of bed and looks over Laura at the stone. He notices the dark spot on the stone and takes a deep breath.

Outside the room Keri puts an ear to the door so she can hear what is going on.

"What does it mean?" Laura asks concerned.

"I don't know, all these years and this is the first time I've seen it like that."

"Is something happening to our Keri? We've kept it from her for so long maybe that's why-."

"No, that can't be it. We've kept it away for a reason, you know that." Mark says cutting his wife off.

Keri is confused as she places a hand on the door. She wants to open the door right there and confront her parents.

"I know but-" Laura begins to say when a sound is heard from the door.

Laura immediately closes the case and slides it back into the closet as Mark shoots toward the door. He opens it and looks around the dark apartment, but sees nothing. He then closes the door behind him. In Keri's room, the young teen is plopped against her door as she steadies her breath. A sad look is present on her face as she lies at the foot of the door in the dark.

The next morning the sun shines down on Stuyvesant High School. Mike, James, Wendy, Phil and Justin are standing outside the school talking. The autumn breeze is crisp as the Rangers talk before classes begin. Keri walks up to the group, visibly tired.

"Hey it's Keri." Wendy says as she waves to their friend to come over.

"Morning guys." Keri says with a yawn.

"Tired I see." Justin says observantly.

Keri nods as she adjusts her backpack.

"You dog, you kept her up all night." James says as he shoves Phil.

"Shut up." A blushing Phil says, shoving his friend back.

"Oh grow up." Wendy says slapping James in the back of the head.

Mike laughs as he puts a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You still have a lot to learn bro."

"What does that supposed to mean? I already have a girlfriend." James replies. "You need to find one or you'll be alone."

"I can get anyone I want. And Justin is still single too." Mike says pointing to his friend.

"I have more important things to think about besides finding a partner. Perhaps if someone comes along who is 10 IQ points beneath me, then maybe I'll consider." Justin answers as he opens his phone to check the time.

"Look bro, I have Wendy, Justin has his computers and Phil has Keri that leaves you out." James points out.

"Ok James I think you need to zip it, you're giving me a headache." Keri intervenes as she rubs her forehead.

James is speechless as Mike laughs. A frustrated James then grapples his brother as the two begin to wrestle.

"Little boys I swear." Wendy says with a sigh.

"Come now Wendy, you give them way too much credit. Little cavemen is more like it." Justin sneers.

Phil walks up to Keri who is still visibly annoyed.

"Long night?"

"You bet, I wish things were easier."

"Want to talk about it?" Phil asks as he takes Keri's hand in his.

Keri slips her hand away as the bell rings. "Not now Phil, I just need some normalcy now. And nothing is more normal than plain old calculus."

"Ok." Phil answers with a smirk as he senses Keri's sarcastic humor which puts him at ease.

Wendy breaks up Mike and James as the rest of the Rangers head to their first classes of the day. A few hours pass as the bell rings to end fourth period. The students exit their classes and pour into the halls. Mike and Justin are seen walking together when they notice a crowd of guys huddled around a locker.

"I wonder what's going on over there." Justin says.

"Let's find out!" Mike says as he pulls his friend with him.

Their path is cut off by the sheer number of guys. Mike jumps up and down to see over the crowd's heads. He sees a blonde-haired girl with a bob cut wearing a black leather jacket over a pink long tee. She's wearing blue skinny jeans and black and pink sneakers.

"Boys boys, I only have so many books for you all to carry." the teenage girl says with a giggle as her black painted fingernails brush a few strands of hair from her eyes.

The boys around her keep making their advances to help her with her books when she notices Mike jumping in the distance. Mike's eyes meet the girl's for a split second as her eyes shine yellow.

"Can you stop hopping like a drunk rabbit ready to get it on." Justin says as he pulls the back of Mike's shirt to stop him.

"But Justin….I think I'm in love…" Mike says with an enamored look on his face.

"What?" Justin replies confused.

Suddenly there is stirring in the crowd as the boys seem to part allowing the blonde-haired girl to walk by them towards the rangers.

"Hey cutie, what's your name?" the girl asks.

Mike and Justin look behind them before turning back to her.

"You're talking to me?" Mike asks.

"You're talking to him?" Justin says pointing to his friend.

"Of course I am, silly." the girl says with a giggle.

"Uhhh it's Mark, I mean Mike."

"Well Markimeanmike, my name is Holly." She says as she smiles.

Justin looks at the girl and then at his friend who just stands there, mouth agape, not saying a word.

"Well…nice talking to you but I have to get to class. Hope to see you soon." Holly says as she walks off with a crowd of boys following her.

Justin and Mike turn towards the mob that is walking further and further away.

"Mike….MIKE!" Justin yells slapping his friend.

"Whoa huh what?" Mike says surprised.

"If you're done salivating, we need to get to class." Justin says walking away from his friend.

"Uhh right, wait for me."

A few minutes pass when a whistle is blown.

"Alright class, it's another beautiful day for PE. Hope you are all ready." the school gym teacher says as the class is all lined up in white tees and black shorts. "Before we begin, Coach Simpson will make an announcement so listen up. Coach…"

The gym teacher turns to his right where the coach is standing.

"Ok class, this season has been rough for our football team. We have suffered numerous injuries and we are looking for a few good players to fill out the roster. This afternoon we will have open try-outs to make the squad, if you think you are up to it show up. Thank you." the coach announces as he takes his leave.

"Alright class, if you are interested meet on the field at 3pm." the gym teacher says pointing outside, "Now let's get class started with some stretches."

The class lift their arms in the air and stretch with the teacher.

"Did you hear that Phil?" Wendy asks between stretches.

"What? The tryouts?" Phil replies confused.

"Yea, you should totally do it. You're athletic enough."

"I don't know. Our other activities kind of get in the way, no?" Phil says with a look.

"I mean it could, but that's not all the time." Wendy explains, "And come on, you don't do anything as an extracurricular activity. You like sports, especially football, so it only makes sense to at least try."

Phil smirks as he replies, "Ok, you've convinced me. I'll do it."

"Great, and we'll all be there to show our support."

"Thanks Wen. You're good at convincing others to realize their potential, too bad you can't convince everyone." Phil says half-jokingly.

"Oh….well she'll come around. You're a great guy, and I'm sure she knows that but you need to give her time to figure out her own stuff." Wendy says, "Especially with all the things that are happening to her."

"Yea I know. But-."

"Phil, Wendy! Do I need to separate you two?" The gym teacher yells.

"Sorry…" the two teens say in unison.

"We'll talk later." Wendy whispers to which Phil nods in agreement.

Few hours later…

"Come on guys we're going to be late!" James yells as he, Justin, Wendy and Keri run off to the football field.

"Calm down James, it just turned 3." Wendy says as James continues to pull her with him.

"Yea, and where is Mike?" Keri asks in between pants.

"He said he will meet up with us a little later." Justin answers.

The four rangers arrive at the field and there are a few bystanders sitting in the stands as the football team with their coach are standing in front of a row of about 10 boys. Phil is there with his hands behind his back like if he was in a military line.

"Ok guys, thank you all for coming. We will start the tryouts-." Coach Simpson begins to say but is interrupted when he sees a figure running toward the field waving its arms in the air.

"Wait…wait for me…" Mike yells as he is donned in football gear.

"What is Mike doing?" Wendy asks.

"Oh jeez don't tell me…" Justin replies slapping his forehead.

"Hey bro! What is this?" James asks.

Mike stops real quick by the stands as his friends lean over.

"I'm trying out, what does it look like?" Mike says as he runs off to the field and joins the line. "Sorry that I'm late coach."

"It's alright son, let this be the last time I'm interrupted." Coach Simpson says as he continues with his speech.

"This is not going to end well." Keri says.

"Yea, Mike isn't the most athletic if you know what I mean." Justin says as he leans back.

"But this is kinda unexpected." Wendy says, "What would make him tryout?"

Justin hears a familiar giggle when he turns to see Holly accompanied by a few guys looking at the practice.

"I think I know." Justin says.

The others look to their friend, expecting an explanation.

"That girl over there; her name's Holly and me and Mike ran into her earlier today." Justin explains, "She seems to have her way with guys, and I bet Mike found out she would be here."

"Well I'm glad my bro took my suggestion to heart." James said with a triumphant smile.

"Oh sweetie, give it a rest." Wendy says shaking her head.

Keri stares at Holly for a few seconds and then turns to the field. The tryouts begin as Phil, Mike and the others perform drills for the coach. After about an hour, the line has dwindled to Phil, Mike and one other guy.

"Wow, I didn't think Mike would last that long." Justin says impressed.

"Well, being a ranger has its benefits I suppose." Wendy adds.

"WOOO go bro, show them what you got!" James yells.

Mike hears his brother and turns to him with a smile before turning away.

'If only he knew, I'm dying out here.' Mike thinks as his smile quickly turns to a frown.

Phil turns to his friends and looks at Keri who returns to the look. She smiles and holds up an index finger, signaling number one. Phil smiles and turns to the coach. The other guy who has very short brown hair with olive colored skin turns to the stands. He looks in the direction of Holly whose eyes flare yellow as the guy's flares green.

"Ok gentlemen, congrats on making it this far but now comes the hard part. You three are going to run routes with the offense against our first team defense." The coach informs, "So get ready."

The three guys jog to the field and put their helmets on. First up is Mike who huddles with the offense, is given the play and jogs to the line of scrimmage. The quarterback hikes the ball as Mike runs the route given. The ball is thrown in his direction and Mike catches it but as soon as he turns around he is crushed by the defensive back. Mike plops backwards as the other rangers in the stands get up concerned for their friend.

"Wooo and that's how we do it!" the defensive back yells as he leave Mike on the floor.

Phil runs up to his friend and kneels next to him, taking his helmet off.

"Mike, you ok?" Phil asks concerned.

"I'm…ok…..what am I doing here?" Mike asks.

"Huh? We are trying out for the football team."

"What?!" Mike yells as he sits up trying to catch his breath, "Why the hell would I do that?"

"I don't know, it was your decision." Phil says helping his friend to his feet.

"Well I'm making the decision to quit." Mike says as he takes his helmet off, "Sorry coach, but this isn't for me."

"Fair enough son, hit the showers." Coach Simpson says.

"Good luck Phil." Mike says giving Phil a pound before running off to the locker rooms.

'Hey Keri…' a voice that sounds like a woman says causing Keri to turn around to find the source of the voice.

"You ok Keri?" James asks noticing her.

"Yea…I'm fine." Keri says with a smirk.

'Why are you lying Keri? You were never like that with me' the voice says again.

'Who…who the hell is speaking?' Keri says in her head.

'Oh don't you remember? You're my better half, and I have missed you so much.'

'What are you talking about? I'm sick of these cryptic messages just come out and say it!' Keri speaks psychically as she looks around trying to pinpoint where the psychic link is derived from.

"Now we're down to two victims. Robert Walker you're up." Coach Simpson says as the young man puts his helmet on and huddles up.

'In due time my dear, but in the mean time I think you should keep your mind on the action.' the voice says as Keri picks up a faint signal coming from a person in the stands.

Her eyes widen as she sets her sights on Holly who is not paying mind to Keri but is totally invested on the action on the field. She then lets out a moan as she puts a hand on her head.

"Keri you ok?" Wendy asks.

"I…I just got a headache." Keri says as she opens her eyes which quickly flare yellow.

The quarterback talks in the huddle when Robert looks up quickly to the stands at Holly who nods her head with a smirk. Robert nods in understanding as he and the others break up the huddle. He lines up and waits for the snap, once it happens he runs as the ball is passed his way. He reaches up and gets it before being hit in mid-air causing him to flip and hit the floor on his back. Shock rings over the field as the team medic runs out to the field.

"ROBERT!" Keri yells from the stands to the shock of her friends and Phil.

Keri then quickly slumps to her seat as her friends try to help her. Phil is confused as the medics help Robert who slowly gets to his feet.

"I'm ok, really. I just got the wind knocked out of me." Robert says as he swats the medics off of him.

"I'm glad you're alright Walker." Coach Simpson says as he hands the young man a cup of water.

"Keri what is wrong?" Justin asks.

"I…I don't know but I need to leave." Keri says as she stands to her feet.

Phil is about to run to Keri's aid when the coach calls him. "Martinez you're up!"

The young man turns back to his coach and takes a breath before putting his helmet on and huddles up.

"Keri you can't leave, Phil is about to-." Wendy states before being cut off.

"I just have to." Keri says as she runs out of the stands and toward the school leaving the other rangers confused.

Holly looks at Keri leave with a smirk. Robert looks on from the bench as he sees Keri running toward the school before he looks down.

"What was that about?" Justin asks.

"I don't know, I'll talk to her." Wendy informs as she gets up and goes after her friend.

"Ok, hun." James says as he and the rest of the Rangers turn back to the field.

The huddle is broken up as Phil lines up as wide receiver. The quarterback hikes the ball and throws the ball in his direction. Phil extends his arms and catches the ball, the same defensive back that crushed Mike comes flying towards him. Phil sees this and spins allowing the teen to fly by him. Phil then runs towards the goal line as the rest of the defense races after him. Phil dodges all of the defenders and reaches the end zone. The rangers and the others in the stands cheers as Phil does a little salsa dance in the end zone. Some of the other players run over to the ranger and congratulate him when he looks into the stands and sees his friends jumping up and down, cheering. Absent are Wendy and Keri which dampens Phil's spirits as he sprints towards the coach.

"Good work Martinez, this decision may be easier than I thought." Coach Simpson says as he slaps Phil's shoulder pad, "Alright everyone, hit the showers. I will put up a list in the coming weeks."

The football team all huddle up and put their hands in the center before chanting "WIN WIN WIN!"

Inside the school, Keri rushes into the ladies room as she leans over the sink and runs the water. She cups some water in her hands and splashes her face, breathing heavy. The door opens up which startles Keri as she turns around to see Wendy which relieves her.

"Oh jeez Wendy, you scared me." Keri says steadying her breathing.

"Sorry, but I wanted to make sure you were ok." Wendy says as she closes the door behind her.

"I'm alright."

"It doesn't seem like you are." Wendy says as she approaches her friend. "Come on, talk to me Keri."

Keri sighs as she confides in her friend.

"I honestly don't know. While we were watching the tryouts it felt like my brain was being 'pushed'." Keri explains. "Maybe it's some kind of side-effect from my abilities."

"Ok…but why did you scream that guy's name? Do you know him?" Wendy asks still confused.

"I don't, but….I feel like I do. Like I've known him for years…"

"Weird…" Wendy adds trying to piece the information together.

"How did Phil do?" Keri asks anxiously.

"He did very well, I think he'll make the team."

"Oh I'm so glad." Keri says happily before a frown comes over her face. "I feel so bad…."

"Keri…I hope you don't take this the wrong way but what's the deal between you and Ph-." Wendy begins to say when her phone buzzes.

Wendy stops what she is about to say and opens her phone to see James calling her.

"Go ahead, tell the others I'll be out in a few." Keri assures with a smile.

Wendy nods as she flips open her phone and walks toward the door. Keri sees her friend leave the restroom as she looks back at the mirror.

"Awww poor Keri, poor poor Keri." the same voice that was in Keri's head earlier says causing Keri to turn around alertly.

"Who the hell are you?!" Keri yells as she kicks in the stall doors one by one until all are open, revealing nothing.

"HAHAHA!" the voice cackles, "So naïve, so weak."

"Show yourself!" Keri yells when she looks back to see the yellow knight ranger in the bathroom mirror.

Outside…

"Hey Mike, feeling better?" James asks as his brother limberly jogs back to the group who are standing on the football field.

"Yea, much better. Don't know what I was thinking." Mike says scratching his head.

"You weren't thinking, that was the problem." Justin says shaking his head.

"Yea yea whatever bro."

"Hey guys." Phil says as he runs up to the others still wearing his football gear.

"Heyy, congrats bro." James says as he gives his friend a pound.

"Thanks guys." Phil says as he notices Keri missing from the group, "So how's Keri doing?"

"She's ok, just not feeling too hot." Wendy says catching the others off guard as she walks up to them. "She's sorry she couldn't stay Phil, but-."

"You don't have to talk for her Wendy. She wasn't feeling well, that's it." Phil interjects.

The others look concerned at Phil's indifference when a loud bang is heard by the teens causing them to fall to their knees, holding their ears. Justin looks around at his teammates who hunch over in pain as all he hears is a ringing sound. He pulls his hand away from his ear to see small traces of blood on them. He looks away with surprised eyes as he grabs James and points toward a figure standing on the goal line of the empty football field.

'The green knight ranger…' James thinks with a shocked expression.

Inside the school, Keri stares at the bathroom mirror as the yellow knight ranger stares back. Keri takes a step back when the knight slowly begins to climb out of the mirror to the shock of Keri. Suddenly Keri gets a headache like the one from before as the knight takes its last step out of the mirror and stands across from the ranger.

"Pathetic….I remember you being stronger than this." The Yellow Knight Ranger sneers as she takes a step closer.

"Stop, don't act like you know me." Keri says as she stands her ground and pulls out her morpher. "Elemental Power Energize! Yellow Light Ranger!"

Keri takes her fighting stance as she is engulfed in a blinding light before her yellow armor covers her body.

"Oh sweetie, you just don't get it. I know you better than you know yourself." The Yellow Knight says with her arms crossed, shaking her head disappointed.

"Photon Arrow!" Keri calls as she raises her arm, causing a bow to form in her hand.

The ranger forms an arrow made of pure light energy and loads it on her bow. "FIRE!"

Keri's attack torpedoes toward the yellow knight who is only a few feet away. But in a split second, a scythe emerges from her armor as she holds it up to her face. All of a sudden, the light arrow begins to slow down until it comes to a stop a few inches from the knight's face.

"What the?" Keri says unbelievably.

"Ha, if you liked that then you'll love this."

The yellow knight flicks her the wrist holding the scythe which causes the light arrow to disintegrate. Keri takes a step back surprised when the knight opens her hand and holds the open palm towards the ranger. A force emanates from the knight's hand and pushes Keri through the bathroom wall outside.

"What was that?" Mike asks as he and the other rangers turn around to see Keri rolling on the floor as the yellow knight ranger steps out of the hole created by her attack.

"Keri!" Phil yells as he runs out to try and help.

The Green Knight dashes in front of Phil and kicks him in the sternum, sending him flying.

"Phil!" James yells out as he catches his friend causing both rangers to hit the floor rolling.

"Bad move to keep your eyes off your enemy, and I'm sorry rangers but you're not getting away from me." The green knight says as he forms a staff in his hands and strikes the ground in front of him like a flagpole. The impact causes a thunderous sound to emit and form into a giant dome that encapsulates the knight, Wendy, Justin, Mike, James and Phil inside.

"Welcome to my Thunder Dome." the knight says.

"Seriously?" Justin says mockingly.

"Jeer if you must mortals, but I recommend you ranger up before I end this quickly."

"Funny creep." Wendy says as she helps James and Phil off the floor.

The five rangers stand in line as they all reach for their morphers and yell out in unison. "Elemental power energize!"

"Red Fire Ranger!"

"Blue Air Ranger!"

"Green Earth Ranger!"

"Black Gravity Ranger!"

"Pink Metal Ranger!"

The powered up rangers all pose before they all charge the green knight. The knight takes his staff and charges at the rangers too as he thinks back at time he studied the rangers' fighting styles. The knight begins to dodge and weave the ranger's punches and kicks as he hits Justin with a thunderous smack in his chest from the staff and then trips up Mike.

"YA!" Wendy screams as she flips and kicks the knight in the head causing the knight to perform backflips until he has some distance from the other rangers.

"Good hit hun" James says.

Phil helps Mike up as Justin slowly gets to his knees. "Justin, you ok?" Phil yells out.

"I'm fine, go after him." Justin says.

"Alright guys, weapons!" James orders as the other rangers form their weapons in their hands.

The knight quickly charges at the other rangers, not giving them time to regroup.

"Watch out guys!" Mike says as he swings his sickle and strikes the ground in front of the knight.

All of a sudden, the knight's pursuit is slowed as the knight's body is being pushed down by Mike's gravity powers.

'Shit, my body feels like I'm carrying five elephants.' the knight thinks as he trudges toward the rangers.

"Wendy!" James yells as his teammate runs at the knight with her flail swinging.

"Take this!" Wendy screams as she slams her weapon down on the knight.

The knight looks up and stops his pursuit and takes the attack. Wendy's attack lands as the flail slams the knight on his shoulder which doesn't make the enemy flinch.

"What the?" Wendy says confused as the knight laughs.

The knight grabs the chain that connects the flail to the hilt of Wendy's weapon which causes Wendy to drop to her knees.

"Wendy what's going on?" James asks.

"Dammit, since I put my gravity field on the knight if he comes into direct contact with anything the gravity field will expand to them as well." Mike explains to the horror of his brother.

"Too….heavy." Wendy says as she tries to lift her weapon which the knight lets fall to the ground with giant thud.

"Good bye ranger." The knight says as he slowly lifts his staff with the end pointing at the Wendy's head.

He drops the staff and the gravity lets it fall towards Wendy.

"Wendy!" James screams as he runs toward them.

"Shit!" Mike says as he flips his sickle and swings it at the direction of the knight and Wendy.

"CHAAA!" Phil yells as he punches the ground causing a wall of rock to come between the knight and Wendy.

Unfortunately the weight of the staff breaks through the wall but the impact causes Wendy to be pushed back as the staff "impales" the ground.

"Ahh much better." The knight says as he feels the gravity being lifted.

James catches Wendy when he looks up to see the green knight pick up the staff and rush them. The knight gets ready to swing his staff when Phil comes in and strikes him with his Stone Axe. The knight is sent flying away from the other rangers as he rolls on the floor. Phil stands in front of Wendy and James as Mike stands next to him.

"Are you going to join us anytime soon Justin?" Mike asks.

"Give me a second. Something is off." Justin says as he gingerly walks over to the others.

"What do you mean?" Phil asks.

"When Wendy attacked it seemed like he let her hit him." Justin explains.

"Well that's because my gravity slowed him down so much that he couldn't dodge it." Mike says.

"No…Justin is right." Wendy says, "When I got close enough, he just stopped instead of trying to get away."

"So…what does that mean?" Mike asks confused.

"I'm not too sure, but perhaps he knew how your powers work." Justin says.

"Wrong ranger, not just his…" the green knight says as he gets up and pulls his staff in two, "All of yours."

Outside of the dome the yellow knight walks up to Keri and kicks her while she's down.

"Why Keri….where's your edge?" the yellow knight asks as she circles the downed ranger, "Where's your killer instinct that made us so close?"

The yellow knight kneels down and grabs Keri's neck. The knight leans in toward Keri's head and begins to sniff her.

"You even smell different." the yellow knight says as she caresses Keri's helmet.

"Sorry, but I don't swing that way!" Keri yells as she stabs the knight with a photon arrow in the knight's side causing blood to splatter on Keri's armor before she head butts the knight.

"Argh!" the knight yells as she falls grabbing her forehead, dropping her weapon.

Keri flips onto her feet and smacks the knight in the side of the head with her bow. She then forms another light arrow and loads her bow. She aims at the knight's head and is about to fire when the knight sweeps Keri's legs from under her. Keri falls back as the knight gets back up and is about to stomp on Keri but she rolls away. The two look at each other as the knight looks quickly to the ground a few feet away at her weapon. She lunges for it but Keri kicks it away just as the yellow knight reached for it.

"Nothing without your weapon, eh knight?" Keri snickers as she forms an arrow in her hand.

"You should know better than that." the yellow knight replies as she grabs Keri's ankle which immediately sends a surge through Keri's body.

"What…what is this?" Keri says as her body becomes weaker and weaker by the second.

"You made the mistake thinking my weapon is the source of my power." the yellow knight explains as Keri plops onto the floor as her Ranger armor begins to deteriorate, "I'm the ruler of time, I can harness it as I see fit."

The yellow knight gets up and hovers over Keri whose armor is cracking from the fast forward of time. Inside the armor, Keri feels her energy being drained.

"Look at you…so weak. You make me sick." The yellow knight says kicking the hurt Keri in the side, "I'm going to fast forward time on you until you're nothing but dust!"

The knight grasps Keri's neck and begins the process again but the power is suddenly cut to the surprise of the yellow knight.

"What?! But…why…WHY!" the yellow knight yells looking at her hand as she can hear small chatters in her head. "I don't know why you have a fascination with this one, but I'm ending it."

The yellow knight stops talking to herself as she spots her scythe and grabs it. She holds it up to Keri's neck and readies a deadly strike.

"If you won't lend me your power, then I'll just kill her the old fashioned way!"

Inside the dome the rangers prepare their second wave against the green knight. The knight begins twirling the two halves of his staff in a clockwise motion which gives off a loud whirling noise. The rangers hear this and immediately hold their ears.

"That sound…it's excruciating." Justin says.

"I can dampen the sound out a little." Phil says as he strikes the ground with his axe creating a large wall of stone that blocks out the noise, making it bearable.

"Good idea Phil." James says as the group huddles behind the wall as the knight gets closer.

"We need to block out the sound completely." Phil says

"I can do that, but I need some time." Justin suggests.

"I have an idea, Mick follow my lead." Phil says as Mick nods his head.

"Ok, we'll give you all the time you need. Everyone just fight through the sound until Justin does his thing." James says. "Rangers let's go!"

The four rangers jump from behind the stone wall as James fires beams of fire from his Pyro sword. The green knight whacks the beam away with his right hand when Wendy spins her flail over her head causing metal spikes to project from them. The green knight twirls his left hand holding the staff causing a thunderous roar to stop the projectiles in mid-air.

"See, I know all your moves!" the knight boasts when a swirling wind begins to form around him.

The green knight looks up to see Justin standing on the stone wall created earlier with his aero lance stuck into the ground as he clamped on it.

"Come on, come on!" Justin says as he concentrates his elemental power.

"What's this? A little fresh air?" the green knight mocks as he slams the two halves of the staff together making a sonic boom that looks to dissipate the wind, but the wind quickly recedes around him.

The wind then begins to take shape as a funnel forms around the knight.

"What's Justin doing?" Wendy asks.

"I don't know." James responds as the ringing sound being heard slowly dissipates as the funnel grows larger.

'Damn that blue ranger, he created a vacuum around me so that my sound can't travel.' the green knight thinks as he tries to fight his way out by punching the wind but to no avail.

The top of funnel begins to grow dark, causing the green knight to look up and see two figures hovered over it. The wind from Justin's attack is keeping Phil and Mick floating above as they prepare their attack.

"Ready Mike?" Phil asks.

"Yup, let's do it!" Mike says.

The two rangers take their weapons and cross them.

"Hey greeny, you say know all of our moves? I bet you haven't seen this yet." Mike says.

"Elemental Combination Strike - Geo Gravity Impact!" both rangers yell as their energy begins to make the ground shake.

Rock and boulders begin to rise from the ground and gather above the funnel between it and the two rangers.

"Don't let up Mike!" Phil yells as they both pour more of their energy into this attack.

The gravity from Mike's power begins to mold the earth into a giant globe.

"A…amazing…" Wendy says as the size of the globe continues to grow.

"Come on let it fly!" James yells as both Mike and Phil swing their weapons down which causes the globe of dirt and rubble to descend onto the funnel with the knight locked inside.

"RRRR this is impossible!" the green knight says as he looks up at the attack falling on him.

"Can't…hold this much longer…" Justin says as he tries to hold the funnel together.

The attack is a few yards away from the knight as he prepares for impact. Suddenly the knight notices something about the funnel around him.

"Almost there!" Phil yells.

"SSShit…" Justin says as he collapses from the immense energy used, his ranger powers leaving him.

The attack makes impact with the knight causing a force back of energy. James and Wendy hold their ground as they are pushed back by the backlash. The impact dies down as the rangers look on to see Mike and Phil on the ground in their civilian clothes.

"Guys!" Wendy yells as the two of them run over to their friends' sides.

"I'm ok." Mike says as James helps him up.

"Same here." Phil exclaims as Wendy helps him up.

"You guys did it." James says with a smile, "The dome is gone, so he must be dead."

"Where's Justin? Phil asks.

The others look at the exhausted Justin when they run to his side as well.

"Damn bro, what happened." Mike asks.

"I…I couldn't hold it." Justin struggles to say.

"It's alright, it was long enough." James says.

"No…it wasn't." Justin informs them when Wendy screams in fear causing the others to look and see the green knight in the middle of a crater surrounded by a small dome similar to the large one he created earlier.

"But…that's impossible…" Phil says horrified.

The green knight lets his shield down as he falls to his knees. He steadies his breathing before he looks at the rangers.

"Shit!" James says as he draws his sword.

"James we need to get out of here, the others have no more energy to fight." Wendy says.

"I know but what about Keri?" James asks as the knight gets back on his feet and grabs his staff.

"AHHHHHHH!" Keri's scream is heard from the distance which catches the rangers and the knight's attention.

"Keri?" the green knight says to himself and taps his staff on the ground causing a thunderous sound to be heard and teleport him away.

"Where did he go?" James asks confused.

"Good bye!" the yellow knight says as she lifts her arms to chop down on Keri's neck when the green knight appears and grabs the weapon, stopping it.

"Robert? What are you doin-." the yellow knight begins to say when the green knight punches her in the face causing her to fly away from Keri.

The green knight quickly walks up to the yellow knight and grabs her by the neck.

"Give her energy back."

"Wha…why?" the yellow knight says as she is being choked.

"Just do it! Or I swear that I'll kill you."

The yellow knight pauses for a few before extending her arm out as waves of energy emanate from it to Keri. The yellow ranger's armor begins to look like new as the power used to fast forward time has now reversed.

"There…it's done." the yellow knight says still struggling.

The green knight tosses her aside as he Keri, exhausted from the fight, powers down. The green knight looks at her as the yellow knight gains her bearings.

"You fool, I don't know what you see in her but we belong together. We were made for each other." the yellow knight says berating the other.

The knights see the other Rangers in the distance as they try and help their comrade.

"Let's go…" the green knight says as he walks away from the yellow knight.

"But why? They are empowered, we can take them out easily." the yellow knight asks when

"We are both weak right now. We used too much power." The green knight explains, "Live to fight another day Holly."

Both knights teleport away as the rangers arrive on the scene.

"Keri!" Phil yells as he and the others run to their friend's side.

"Wha…where am I?" Keri clumsily says as her eyes open to see Wendy, James, Mike and Phil standing over her.

"Whoa easy there Keri." Mike says as Keri springs up.

"You're in the power chamber." James says as Keri calms down.

"Jeez, last thing I remember was fighting that knight." Keri says as she takes a deep breath.

"Yea, we had our own run in with one." Phil informs as he smiles.

"Really?" Keri says shocked, "But why were there only two of them?"

"That's what I was wondering." James says.

"Who knows the knight's reasoning." Mike adds as he stretches his arms.

"Well, since they know our identities we must be on our toes at all times." Wendy chimes.

"Yea, but where's Justin?" Keri asks.

"Analyzing some of the yellow knight's blood that was splattered on your armor." Phil answers, "He hopes to get a clue on our enemy with that."

"That's good…" Keri says nervously as she looks at Phil.

"Well, we all had a long day." Wendy says, "We should head home, the school grounds will be a mad house tomorrow after our fight."

"Yea, me and Mike will go take Wendy home." James says.

"Phil, you'll take Keri home?" Wendy asks with a small smirk.

"Yea I will." Phil answers.

"Justin told me earlier he'll stay here a little longer to analyze the data." Mike says as the rangers nod and teleport back to Manhattan.

The group splits like they said as Phil and Keri walk over to her apartment. There trek is mostly silent as the events of the day has waned on the two of them. But to clear the air, Keri finally speaks up.

"Listen Phil, I-." Keri begins to say.

"So it looks like I'm going to make the team." Phil says interrupting his teammate, "I play a lot of games, so there are plenty of times you can see me."

Keri looks at him for a second as she sees him with a small smile which causes her to smile. "Most definitely."

The two arrive at her apartment when Phil walks Keri up the steps to the door. Keri digs for her keys as Phil takes a step down the stoop when Keri grabs his arm. Phil looks back as Keri wraps her arms around his neck and plants a kiss on his lips. The young man is taken back at first but then returns the kiss as he closes his eyes. Keri pulls away slowly as the two look into each other's eyes.

"Phil, I know I've given you a lot of stuff since we met and I've always said I didn't know what I want." Keri starts to say as Phil listens intently, "I always thought it was to have a normal life, but now I realize I want something extraordinary. And I know that means being with you cause no matter what, you make me feel special."

The two embrace as the sun finally sets on the Manhattan skyline.

In the Knight's flying castle, the green knight is sitting in his chambers as he loads the data from his last fight into his globe. The new elemental combination attack is logged as the knight sighs. The video is then changed to a live feed of Keri and Phil embracing each other as the green knight clenches his fists.

The next morning…

"You know you didn't have to drive me dad." Keri says as she sits in her father's car.

"I know, but I had the day off and I figure we can chit chat before you go to school." Keri's dad says which is met with silence.

Keri's mind immediately thinks to the other night when she heard her parents talking in her room.

"So….how's life?" Keri's dad asks non-chalantly.

Keri's urge to bring up that night builds up when she finally opens her mouth.

"Nothing really just school, boys the usual." Keri answers with a smirk as she looks at her dad for a reaction.

"Boys huh?" Keri's dad says looking at her daughter, "Or is it one particular boy?"

"There's no hiding anything from you dad." Keri says sarcastically.

"Well, as long as he treats you right. I'm happy." Her father says which surprises Keri.

The car pulls up to the school as her friends are gathered outside. Keri goes and hugs her dad and pecks his cheek.

"I love you dad."

"Love you too, have a good day."

Keri opens the car door and climbs out, closing it behind her. Her father drives off as Keri runs over to her friends. Police are at the school as the damage done the day before is being investigated.

"Hey guys!" Keri yells out as the others turn to their friend. "Hey cutie."

Keri grabs Phil's hand and gives him a kiss as the other's smile at the sight.

"Phil, you dog." James says, "You finally wrangled her in."

Wendy elbows James in the side to his chagrin as she says, "Congrats guys."

"Thanks." Phil and Keri say when she notices Justin missing.

"Is Justin running late again?"

"Yea, you know him." Mike says when a car screeching is heard in the parking lot.

The group looks to see Justin quickly parking his car and running out towards the group.

"Guys! Guys!" Justin yells as he reaches them and tries to catch his breath.

"What's wrong Just?" James asks concerned.

"The blood work….from the knights…" Justin says in between breaths.

"Yea?" Phil asks anxiously.

"It's human!"


End file.
